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 morning. Is this sound okay? I should introduce myself. My name is Roshin Paul Heller. One of the interesting features of City Center, there's... You okay? Some people have been coming here, like Don, like myself, for a long time, and then other people are just... This is their first day. So those of you who are here for the first time, welcome. Those of you here for 10,000th time?

[01:03]

Oh, still the first time. Very good. The last three months I was at our monastery, Tassahara, leading the winter, the winter practice period. It's an immersion in the self. It's an immersion in a deliberately structured traditional Zen training environment. It's an immersion in 130,000 acres of wilderness. It's an immersion in a collection of people, about 60, in a narrow valley facing east and west, running east and west, and how those people together through their collective intention and vow become a sangha, influence each other, support each other, and occasionally annoy each other.

[02:31]

as they annoy themselves. And so I come back to the city a little bit over a week ago. Transitions are a very interesting place for us to sort of see. Usually there's a saying that the fish doesn't know the water. We're so much in our version of normal, of usual, that we don't see it. And then we go somewhere else and then we come back and there's a newness to it. There's a difference to it. There's a contrast. In some ways we could say the same thing of Zazen. We sit down and in Zazen we immerse in now. We immerse in the moment, just as it is. And then whatever arises, we let it arise and fall away. And then we stand up and we enter that world with intention, with agency, with the motivation to do something in particular.

[03:49]

The contrast. So watching that contrast in myself and how it's relating to what's happening here, Interestingly, it both seemed to reveal something about this environment and something about the environment of Tassahara. As you immerse in a practice like that, there's something in following a schedule. That's very important. significant phrase in the Zen world, especially the traditional monastic world. The day starts about 3.40 and goes on until about 9.15 in the evening. 3.40 a.m. And you just do what's next.

[04:55]

In contrast, if you think about it, In our more usual lives, some parts of it, we are applied to just do what's next. And then other parts of it, we choose what's next. It's interesting being back in the world of media, or more particularly of internet connection. And how often do I choose to check my email or look at the news or something like that. in what motivates that and what gets stirred up by doing it. All these interesting ways we are, the person we are, living in the world that we're living in. So it tests our in that immersion.

[06:00]

happening now becomes more relevant. It becomes more itself. It's like the admonition of following the schedule of being part of the practice can often just be translated down to, do what you're doing. Just do this. What's in front of you, do it. And it sort of loosens up what you might call the background narrative that glues our life together. Sometimes that way where our inner world is more demanding for a whole variety of reasons than what we're doing. And we're sort of doing this and we're sort of distracted from doing it. And as we engage in that way, a sense of fluidity comes.

[07:18]

Okay, do this, now stop doing that, and do this. That's Zen training in a monastery. Okay, Zazen, okay, stop doing that, and go to the Buddha hall. Chanting, okay, stop doing that, and I sweep the sidewalk. Okay, when the bell rings, stop doing that and go to breakfast. And within that so-called, or maybe restriction, usually we start to discover and experience, in a very interesting way, some sense of freedom or spaciousness. And in that spaciousness, we both see the workings of the self and how what's around us is engaged.

[08:29]

And we find personal agency or authority. It's kind of a wonderful paradox. You give over to a very structured, restricted environment, and in the middle of giving over, you discover personal agency. There's basic Buddhist teaching of dukkha. parts to the word, duka. And the ka is the root of a term which means a realm of being. And then the duk means contraction. And then when you put them together, it's usually translated into English as suffering, duka, suffering.

[09:37]

noble truth of Buddhist practice. But there's also, along with that, there's another term, sukha. And the ka is the same, realm of being. And this su there means spacious. Maybe the opposite of contracting. And if you think about what I was just saying, giving over to a structured environment, we experience the spaciousness. And then the Buddhist teaching is that the dukkha is stimulated by the persistent disappointment of not getting what we want

[10:41]

and getting what we don't want. It's somewhere in the workings of who we are and how we're negotiating being alive. It's very much influenced by, sometimes blatantly and sometimes subtly in ways we're not even aware of, trying to get what we want and avoid what we don't want. And then the Buddhist teaching is When that becomes the dominant way of how we negotiate our lives, we suffer the consequences because if you think about it, sometimes we get what we want, sometimes we get part of what we want, and sometimes we get neither. That's how life is. And then the challenge for us is then what brings forth sukha given those circumstances, given those conditions of a human life?

[11:53]

On that note, I'd like to read you a poem. It's by a poet named Ann Hillman. And here's the poem. Look with uncertainty toward the old choices for clear-cut answers. Look with uncertainty towards the old choices for clear-cut answers. To a softer, more permeable aliveness, which is every moment at the brink of death. To a softer, more permeable aliveness, that is every moment at the brink of death. For something new is being born in us if we but let it. We stand at a new doorway, awaiting that which comes, daring to be human creatures, vulnerable to the beauty of existence, learning to love,

[13:12]

uncertainty towards the old choices for clear-cut answers to a softer more permeable aliveness which is every moment at the brink of death for something new is being born in us if we would but let it we stand at a new doorway awaiting that which comes daring to be human creatures vulnerable to the beauty of existence Learning to love. As I was sitting upstairs in my office, thinking about what I was going to say, I was thinking, well, is that the whole story? The beauty of existence, learning to love? in my mind, came up with no.

[14:22]

That's not the whole story. In fact, life seldom is a singularity of sukha, of well-being. Life is a blend of dukkha and sukha. And part of the intrigue of practice is Buddhist practice is that the path to sukha includes learning to relate to dukkha. And just this week, someone who's a long-term student here sent me a message saying that his granddaughter had... a major seizure. And I texted him back and said, oh, I'm very sorry to hear that.

[15:26]

I hope she's okay. And he said, well, her mother, his daughter, is also having a very strong, I think he said she was freaking out, but having a very strong response to her daughter's illness. And that this was also... for concern, cause for something in him to be distressed. And when I was absorbing that and feeling that, I got word that a family member was also of mine was also having serious health problems. I think that's what prompted my mind to say, the beauty of existence is not the whole story.

[16:35]

At least in relative terms. About a week ago, I read this article on hospice care. You know, we have a hospice across the street, just down the block. And we take care of people who are dying. And there was an article, I think it was in the Washington Post, quite wonderful article. enumerating and describing the qualities of tension, of engagement that suffering asks for. And how within the medical model, within the busyness of our life, within our attempts to fix things, to remedy them,

[17:50]

we can miss something very simple, just the natural attribute of caring for each other, of being touched by each other's difficulties or illnesses. So when I got this text from my friend and this family news, it made me remember that article. how we hold our dukkha is very significant. The dukkha isn't just a kind of obscure Buddhist philosophy. It's the stuff of our life. It runs through our life in a whole variety of ways. The commentary on dukkha in the standard description in the Buddhist texts is

[18:55]

Dukkha is not getting what you want and getting what you don't want. How simple, how obvious, and yet sometimes how devastating, how utterly painful, how disappointing, distressing, all these things. And then how do we, rather than letting those very human responses harden us, frighten us, make us agitated, how do we let them open us, bring forth compassion, I was mentioning, as I was mentioning a couple of moments ago, in Buddhism, it's opening to the dukkha.

[20:10]

And maybe the primary teaching with regards to that is kashanti, patience. This way in which Certainly dukkha can create distress, can create a contracting and a resisting, or it can create an engagement that calls forth sukha into our lives. the classic teaching on Kishanti is this. Don't run away. Stay with the experience. Open to the experience. Stay with the experience. Feel it fully.

[21:20]

And forgive. to persevere, to accept, and to forgive. How can we, given our deeply ingrained resistance to suffering, to that which causes us pain, how can we, rather than create a physical, an emotional, a psychological resistance? How can we turn in a way that's connecting rather than separating? To me it's striking that when someone has an experience

[22:32]

negative experience, painful experience, it's so powerful that it's traumatic. It's not at all unusual to just shut down. I don't know if you've ever been close to someone who's had a trauma. One of the basic strategies is to say to them, have you eaten? Have you taken a shower? Have you slept recently? No. Just can you bring them back into a connectedness to the basics of life? Can you take a deep breath? Can you reconnect to your body? How do we turn like that? And the teachings are, Start with the less demanding experiences in our lives.

[23:42]

Like when something annoys you. Maybe it's as subtle as a passing motor scooter's sound. You just experience it as slightly unpleasant. Can you experience that? Can you turn towards it? Can you experience it? And can you soften in the process rather than slightly contract? And one of the very helpful things about zazen is that as we sit, we learn to tune in in this way. We learn to embody the body.

[24:46]

We learn to see how it registers pleasant and unpleasant. Unpleasant usually registers as a slight contraction or more than slight contraction. And pleasant usually registers as in opening, in ease. And very interestingly, in energy flow. And we can train ourselves to notice when something creates for us creates for us more exactly, a negative emotion. Be it anger, fear, agitation, anxiety.

[25:51]

To turn towards it and to feel it. And I think for almost all of us, this doesn't sound like the admonition of Zazen, no? It doesn't sound like, no, wait a minute, I want to sit and be in a state of settled, open awareness and experience the vulnerability to the beauty of existence. learning to love, as the poet says. And it's interesting because when you're at Tassajara, there is an opening. There is a cultivating and accumulating spaciousness. But there's also, for almost everyone, a tapping down into the unsettling parts of

[27:06]

being alive. They sort of go together. Sometimes it's more than one on the other, but sometimes they go together. Start to become more open, and then you notice more about the activity of mind and emotions and thoughts. And part of how the stricture of the schedule opens to sukha, is that it asks of us this expression of kashanti, of patience. Stay with it. And then the persistence. As we persist, as we persevere, becomes more evident?

[28:10]

The patterns of response that we have? Am I more prone to fear or more prone to aggression in response to the unpleasant? I was driving down Page Street several days ago. I wasn't driving, I was a passenger. And someone thought the person who was driving did something wrong. So he rolled down the window, cursed and swore, and gave him the finger. Responding to the unpleasant with aggression. How can I ever be certain that things are going to be okay?

[29:27]

That I'm going to be okay. That my granddaughter is going to be okay. You know, my friend's granddaughter. My own family member. Or the... the numbing out. And one of the powerful requests of our practice is this persevering. Can you just stay with your experience? Can you open to this? Can you open to this? Can you open to this? Part of the wisdom of a strict monastic schedule is that's a really difficult thing to do. And we all need support. We all need prompts to do it.

[30:36]

We all need the support of others and a structure to do that. And in a way, That's what the structure of zazen, the point of sitting cross-legged, of sitting upright, of directing your attention, of sustaining receptive attention. That we can experience the experience and stay. And as we stay, we see the patterns, and as we see the patterns, very interesting thing happens for us. The event that we're being aware of becomes about with awareness it becomes about itself. Oh, right now I'm responding like this to that experience.

[31:42]

Right now reading my friend's text message about his granddaughter and his daughter. I'm feeling, literally, his difficulty, his demise, his concern, his compassion. And it's not to make it bland. It's not to turn it into a neutral event. It's to let us have a fuller experience of what this life's about. This is how it is. And so not only do we see the patterns of our own conditioned responses, we start to get a teaching about something beyond our own conditioned responses.

[32:55]

And as that happens, there's an interesting kind of equanimity that arises, a way of accepting. And that accepting is different from resignation. There's a way we can become resigned, we can become numbed, and almost like coach ourselves not to care. I think one of the great challenges of our age is to read this constant flood of bad news from around the world. If you think about it, two or three hundred years ago, And you didn't know much beyond your own village. When someone died in your village, that was a big deal. And you had time to process it. And you could go and talk to the person.

[33:59]

And now we get an endless stream of carnage from around the world. And what do we do with it? Oh, okay. A plane crash in Algeria. 245 people died. And what are the sports results? Or what did Donald Trump say yesterday? The request to stay close to our hearts. and to keep rediscovering what matters. To stay, as the poet says, to stay softer, more permeable aliveness. To a softer, more permeable aliveness, which is every moment.

[35:11]

brink of death. Maybe I'd modify it to say, which is at every moment part of this ever-changing world. The brink of death, the brink of new life, the brink of beauty, the brink of violence. It's all there. And as we experience it moment by moment, as best we can, or event by event, or when we can. The teachings of how existence is become alive. And in the equanimity of acceptance organically happens. And it's not something we can force on ourselves.

[36:15]

No more than you can force yourself to be happy. This kind of trusting acceptance of life as it is. And then that ripens into forgiveness. We can forgive life for being itself. much that's relevant when we're receiving this constant stream of bad news. Or reading the outrageous comments or actions of particular politicians that we don't approve of. Or parts of your own family history or personal history.

[37:23]

Kategori Roshi, who was abbot here briefly, he said, when we sit zazen and we're fully present, the world is forgiven for being what it is. Everyone and everything is forgiven. How do we open up in that way? Greek paradox of our practice is it isn't that we can settle into a state of consciousness that's impervious to what's going on. As the poet says, a more permeable aliveness. It's not impervious. It's not utterly detached. It's more that...

[38:36]

the aliveness flows. In that something in us allows it to flow. From this to this to this to this. The very same way the training in a Zen monastery happens. Do this, do this, do this, do this. Just flow from this to this. Even the roles you have in the monastery go like that. Every three months, six months, one year, your role changes. One period you're the baker. The next period you're the plumber. The next period you're serving guests in the dining room. we look closely at our lives they're no different from a Zen monastery wherever we are we're flowing from one thing to another I was talking to someone very recently and we were talking about the transition from being a mother of two young children to being a professional landscape designer

[40:16]

we're talking about the role of putting on your makeup as engaging that transition. Everything that we touch, every way we engage the world has its own teaching for us. Can we discover it? then we find a beauty that it's not beautiful because it complies with our notion of appropriateness or correctness, whatever. But its beauty is

[41:23]

has aliveness, it has energy. And maybe that beauty is gonna cause us heartbreak. Or maybe that beauty is gonna make us feel joyful. But the aliveness of it is what stirs us. Palestinian poet who, you know, it's part of what happens between Palestine and Israel. Palestinian land gets confiscated and all their trees get bulldozed down and their house, their farmhouse gets demolished and they're left with the front door key. And this happened to this poet.

[42:30]

And then he moved to Jerusalem. And he made little trinkets that he sold to tourists. And then, with great irony, in the midst of all this, he became highly acclaimed as a poet. And also, somewhere in the process, his kashanti was such that he came to a place of forgiveness and what he called acceptance and happiness. And in one of his poems he says, but don't wish for my happiness. It might not be what you're after. My happiness is not getting what you want. So whose life doesn't have rigor and demands that meet them every day, doesn't ask something of you, and whose life doesn't have the opportunity for this deeper immersion in being alive?

[43:53]

Let me end by reading this poem again. with uncertainty towards old choices for clear-cut answers to a softer, more permeable aliveness, which is every moment at the brink of death. For something new is being born in us, if we would but let it. We stand at a new doorway, awaiting that which comes. daring to be human creatures, vulnerable to the beauty of existence, learning to love. 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.

[44:58]

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.

[45:13]

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