This podcast is offered by the San Francisco Zen Center on the web at www.sfcc.org. Our public programs are made possible by donations from people like you. Good evening. So let's start off with a few moments of sitting. If you could, as best you can from the bottom of your torso, from your sit bones, if you know where that is, where you're making contact with your cushion or the bench, becoming aware of your spine, rising up, slightly curved forward opposite your navel, lifting through the chest, lengthening through the back of your neck, the crown of your head, your shoulders widening, your backbone, uprightness.

[01:29]

physical expression of resolve. And then the front of your body, the abdomen, the stomach, the solar plexus, the heart, the throat, the face. physiologically, the organs of our humanness. In the realm of sensation, many areas in which our emotions, our sensibilities, our sensitivities register. front of your body be alive, noticing this vulnerable front to your being.

[02:48]

Letting your chest, your face, your throat, your stomach, your abdomen relax. of the sensation in those areas. Breathing into that field of sensation. Breathing out from that field of sensation. it was a couple of weeks ago I gave a talk and in the talk we did an interactive exercise and well well from my perspective I don't know how it was for you but from my perspective what that was about was getting in touch with you sincere resolve to practice

[05:49]

practice ask of you, and then having an interaction with another person to let that come to life, to let that be enlivening, to let that be potent, to discover something within you is enlivened, is engaged in that exploration, in that request. I thought I'd see if I could concoct another interactive experience that was about bringing that into everyday engagement. I mean, it's one thing to hold still, and it's a beautiful thing to hold still. It's so wonderful for our body, our nervous system, our state of mind, our emotional life, to let something hold still.

[06:59]

to let it settle, to let it release some of its tension and agitation. What a gift. But our life is more than just that. Our life is just more than being quiet and still. Our life is engagement. It's interaction. It's meeting the energy of the moment and becoming part of it. And the challenge for us as habituated beings who have established very fixed ways of thinking and feeling and relating, how do we not just let that engagement be another version of this story we keep telling ourselves? How can we shift the frame of reference? So asking ourselves, what does practice ask of me?

[08:08]

Anyway, it's a shift from, what do I want from practice? What do I hope to get from practice? What part of myself do I not like that practice is going to fix? What's missing in my life that practice is going to get me? You know, we shift it. What does practice ask of me? What will I give to practice? And then within the dharma, within the teachings, there's another way to shift, and it's to recognize the fundamental nature of being, which is shunyata, which is usually translated as emptiness, but the word is collection of these characteristics. That everything is impermanent.

[09:12]

Nothing lasts indefinitely, eternally. It comes and it goes. Everything arises out of causes and conditions. Everything exists in relationship to everything else. Everything is just a momentary event, separate in our apprehension from everything else, and then it resumes its interconnection. So it's a flow. The way our habituated thinking substantiates it, makes it permanent, makes it an us and them. sets up a misapprehension. I don't know that sounds very abstract, but if you just think about each moment in Zazen, when their awareness comes, you see the thought, see the feeling, see the story, see the memory, see the image.

[10:34]

and just opening the hand of thought, let it go, like a bubble bursting. There it is, pop, there it isn't. We witness, we experience, we co-create. It's dissolving. We experience, we actualize, we participate, in the emptiness of being. It's like when we sit and we settle and we become aware of the space in the room, when we become aware of seeing as seeing, when we become aware of hearing, when we become aware of the sensations in the body. We may become aware of the, in the midst of this sensorium of the senses, thoughts, images, feelings.

[11:46]

Just another modality of what comes and goes. We experience śūnyata. this fluidity, this dynamic expression of being. So the marvelous thing, this is my sales pitch for the exercise. Practice is an activity. Learning how to practice is an experiential learning. So just hearing ideas can only set the stage for the activity. The engagement enables, actualizes the realization.

[12:49]

So, repeated exercise. Usually we think, oh, I have an opinion about that. Here it is. And it's the product of my thinking. my rationalization, to let something bubble up from something more involved, something more intuitive than just what to think. To let it bubble up, be expressed, and then let it go. bless you and then let something else bubble up express it and then let that go so something about the engagement of repeated exercise is this direct expression of this flow of existence this flow that the very aliveness of our mind

[14:04]

is a constant flow of ideas. And the repeated exercise is an exercise in letting them come and letting them go. So, in a way, it's like we're coming from the mind of emptiness. come from the mind of emptiness and meet the moment. And when that happens, that interaction expresses the nature of what is. Okay? That's the theory. Now the practice. Now the scary part. We're going to do this in dyads with one other person.

[15:08]

So if you could just turn to someone nearby and sit in zazen posture as best you can, facing the person. Anyone who doesn't have a partner? Okay. You could move over here, there's lots of space right there. Everybody else? Okay. And maybe before we start, just to notice, are you excited? Are you apprehensive?

[16:10]

Are you, I don't know, sorry you came here tonight? Just remember, the only requirement is to be yourself. And you can't be anything else. There's a way in which you can't go wrong. the nature of repeated question as i was just saying one person asks the other person answers and in your answer you you don't want to develop a story you just want to offer a concise response it's like you want to offer a summary of what it is you want to say

[17:15]

Maybe just a phrase, a sentence. In asking the question, you're making an offering. You make it like holding out a hand. Here's a way to stimulate coming from emptiness. Whenever the answer arises, whatever answer arises is perfect. It's exactly itself. You accept it. You pause. You ask again. You don't rush your partner. You don't get too spacey so they get distracted. So be sensitive.

[18:17]

to the engagement. And then for the person answering the question, just let the question be received. Let it discover its own response and let that response come out. And then the questioner gets to add a colon, just as a comment that requires no further response. I'm going to offer you three phrases. They come from three classic cards.

[19:19]

So the answer will arise, and then, without thinking too much, decide which of these statements is most appropriate. Every day is a good day. In essence, saying yes This day, this occasion, this experience is something to practice with. Every day can be practiced with. Every interaction can be practiced with. Every condition of our self can be practiced with. Every day is a good day. Second statement. hot, too cold.

[20:25]

Comes from a coin where the student says, is there a place where it's not too hot or not too cold? And the teacher says, yes. The student says, well, how do I get there? The teacher says, when it's too hot, completely experienced too hot. When it's too cold, completely experience too cold. The gist of it is, completely experience whatever is arising. Third statement. This very mind is Buddha. What's happening now is the teacher, is your teacher.

[21:29]

This experience you're having is teaching you how to practice. So you can just experiment as the questioner and then the responder. Every day is a good day. Too hot, too cold. This very mind is Buddha. Okay? So you can, and the question, the question is, how do you suffer? Just take a breath. And then you can begin. Okay, Ben, if you could just finish your answer and just close your eyes.

[22:40]

And you just close your eyes and close your mouth. No, close your eyes and close your mouth, Merle. And just experience what it was like to do that. What's your state of mind? Any physical sensations? Emotions? try to suppress them, but just to fully experience them. Okay, then in a moment we'll change worlds. It's a questioner.

[23:45]

You ask, how do you suffer? Response arrives, and you just say one of those three phrases. Ask the question, response arrives, is say, one of these three, every day is a good day, too hot, too cold, or this very mind is Buddha. Anyone. Just close your eyes. Close your eyes, Brent. Both of you. Okay. Coming from the mind of emptiness, it's all a flow. It's all an interaction arising and changing moment by moment.

[24:49]

Amazingly, we grasp it. And with great conviction, say, me. And then you can open your eyes and begin, you know, change roles. Okay. So if you could bow to your partner and then close your eyes again. Just close your eyes.

[25:54]

Experience as fully as possible whatever is happening. No attempt to change any part of it. Just to feel it, hear it, as fully as possible. And then if you could just turn back in this direction, please. It didn't work? Me? Well, it made you a lot friskier. How is that?

[27:08]

Yes, Tanya? Yeah. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yes. To be able to frame the arising experience with one of those phrases. to be able to take our experience and hold it in the context of the Dharma.

[28:14]

To be able to offer it to someone else, and then in offering it to someone else, realize, oh, I could do this with myself. Instead of taking up my usual stories of whatever they are, I could say, too hot, too cold. I could say, this very mind is Buddha, just the way it is. It's a teacher. I could say, every day is a day to practice. Every day is a good day. Something arises from the mind of emptiness and cannot be met with the intentionality of practice in contrast to the conditionality of habituated thought and feeling.

[29:20]

Not that it's broken and we want to fix it. It's just we want to turn it so we can see a little more clearly, we can see another side to it, we can discover. something more than what our habituated thoughts and feelings tell us. Anyone else? Yes? It was interesting how they felt kind of interchangeable and also how each successive formulation of suffering felt like a version, like they all felt like versions of understanding. separation. Because all three of those things are just a different angle of separation. So it's just interesting. I found that one thing I enjoyed about the repeating Austrian exercise is that there's a way that it just moves really quickly and kind of gets in under.

[30:35]

And I found that that, like, I didn't feel that I surprised myself as much with my answers, because there was that attraction. But it was so early instructive. How do we suffer as we take away unique circumstances and conditions of our own life and get at what's underneath that. In a way, it's like a common experience. We all have, just a moment, we all have the same repertoire of difficult emotions. Maybe the unique circumstances of our own life

[31:38]

bring them forth accordingly, but there they are. Yes, please. I don't know when you talk that much, or at least in my life, I don't know when you talk that much about their stuff and everything's okay. It's fine, I feel good. And so here's what I want to say. Something wrong there, so. Just realize that we all suffer. It's funny. We hear that all the time. I know, but to me it's just... Exactly.

[32:44]

There's pain. Well, there's the suffering of the pain, but there's also the suffering of trying to turn away from the pain. Trying, as Janine was saying, try to separate from it. Until even though it's fierce, It may be frightening to turn towards it and to be asked to turn towards it. There's another way, as a kind of a release, sometimes even a relief. Okay, let's be as true as we can, as courageous as we can. Yeah? Well, I loved your use of the word record for it. You did? Because as a musician, as you grow, as a musician, you keep building your record for it. If we can build a repertoire for how we deal with suffering, our suffering and suffering in general, that helps us get away from habitual responses.

[33:54]

We can say, well, I know I'm used to when I was a young musician, I don't always react this way to suffering, but now I have these other tools, I have some, these other pieces that I can use. Yeah. in a much more sophisticated, mature way of responding. Yes. And the beauty, literally, the beauty of the koan is that it's not a prescription. It's more of an invitation. It's not saying, you should think exactly like this, or you should respond exactly like this. It's saying... What if you held it in this way? Could it be seen more clearly, felt more clearly for what it is?

[34:55]

It's this invitation. And then something, one last idea, something about interaction, something about it's enlivened. In being enlivened, it's made more potent. Someone else asks us, and the great gift they give us, the way in which we can literally support each other. But also, something about enlivening our own relationship. to our experience, our own relationship to inquiry, our own invitation and request to open an experience, to enliven it and let it enliven who we are, what we are.

[36:05]

Okay, thank you 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, please visit sfzc.org and click Giving. May we fully enjoy the Dharma.

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