Good morning. So this morning we had the full moon ceremony. Renewing our intention to practice. This fascicle of Dogon that I've been quoting is often translated as wholehearted way. How to be wholehearted about renewing our practice. the central theme, the transformative agent that helps us shift from being engrossed in the preoccupations of the constructs of the self into seeing them for what they are and letting them teach us how not to suffer and how to experience liberation.

[01:32]

The transformative point is taking refuge. And of course, taking refuge has endless forms in the Zen school. This is our way. myriad expressions of Buddha, endless teachings, endless ways to rediscover connectedness. And I hope this is what. I was sitting upstairs and my mind was filled with ideas and I was thinking, uh-oh,

[02:35]

I apologize in advance. In praise of self-depreciation. Vishlava Zimborska. The buzzard has nothing to felt himself with. Scruples are alien to the Black Panther. Piranhas do not doubt the rightness of their actions. The rattlesnake approves of herself without reservations. The self-critical jackal does not exist. The locusts, the alligator, trichina, horsefly, live as they live and are glad of it. The killer whale's heart weighs 100 kilos, but in other respects is light.

[03:46]

There is nothing more animal-like than a clear conscience on the third planet of the sun. is that, a clear conscience. Or as Dogen Zenji says it, in a wholehearted way. Release, it fills your hands. Speak, it fills your mouth. The wholehearted practice of the way I'm speaking of allows all things to exist in realization. so that they may express going beyond in the path of letting go. They may express going beyond in the path of letting go.

[04:58]

What the heck is that? Here come my ideas, so watch out. I remember reading an article on the nature of consciousness. It was mostly from psychoanalytic perspective. And it said something like this. given the way we create psychological relevance and significance, and then the external world becomes the theater of playing out those significances. That we become entranced by the theater.

[06:16]

watching a movie there's a scene going on and you're just all caught up in it which is wonderfully wholehearted except there's no awareness it's taken as real it's not real it's just a movie What's arising is the construct of the theater that comes into being from what's in the environment of the moment, sometimes called proximate cause, and the internal impulses and agendas and preoccupations that come to meet it and interact with it.

[07:21]

And this article was saying, so it leaves us with something like intermittent consciousness, intermittent awareness. We're aware, we're in the dream of the theater. Now, where was I again? Out. I was here. Now. So a very significant part of our practice is let's explore here and now. Let's explore renunciation. What a scary word. Letting go of the drama of the theater that's being created. Directed attention. Directed to the phenomena arising here and now.

[08:28]

So they may practice the path of going beyond passing through the barrier of dualism, dropping off limitations. So we sit, we practice Hashin, we drop it, we pick it up. We get lost in it, we come back. And we gain a precious gift. We gain a direct experience that what's going on is both real and unreal. It's real that it's the enactment of the very blood of our life. This enactment is the vital, is the expression, it's a manifestation of life, according to me.

[09:57]

And it's just something that's been conjured up. You know, in the Diamond Sutra, it says, Because it's not real, then we can call it what it is. And that applies to everything, even what we call Buddhas or dharmas. When we're entranced by the stuff of a self, we're not aware of what it is that we're entranced by. As we come back to here and now, in its simplistic, simple phenomenological form, details of the breath, sensations in the body, sounds, something in the transition, something

[11:15]

in the juxtaposition, something in the contrast starts to make evident the constructs of the self and the function of the constructs of the self. It's like when we're not caught up in it, it's easier for us to see it. The challenge for this is how to allow for this real and unreal. Okay, so being in a dream is bad. Being entrenched is bad. I'll suppress the being that's trying to arise. It's like trying to stop being alive. It's exhausting.

[12:24]

You can accomplish it for moments, but inevitably it squirts through your fingers because it wants to live. So we hold ourselves in the container of Sushim. More intimately, we hold ourselves in the container of intention and vow. And we let go, and we let go, and we let go. And we start to see that what's arising is the expression of the vital energy of being alive. And it doesn't need to be grasped.

[13:28]

It doesn't need to be grasped to allow life. It doesn't need to be grasped and say, this is so, as if our existence depended upon some absolute conviction that this was reality. It doesn't need to be denied through some conviction of our own limitation. Toys with this existential dilemma. The rattlesnake approves of herself without reservations.

[14:50]

And why not? Why not? Be wholeheartedly a rattlesnake if you're a rattlesnake. Why not be wholeheartedly you if you're you? So the blessing of this point of Shashin is that we have put ourselves in this crucible. We have put ourselves in this stricture to help loosen up, to help flake off some of those encrusted dreams of self. The habitual way we energize them, we declare them as real and here and now as a dream.

[15:50]

started to reverse the tide. Here and now becomes more real and the constructs and arisings were at least a little more inclined to allow them just to be constructs and arisings. And Dogen Zinji says, going beyond the duality of it's either this or that. Either this is real or my dreams are real. They're both real. They're both unreal. Now we can start to enter a territory Not so much endeavoring to make something happen.

[17:03]

Have your mind be a certain way. But more emphasis on continuous contact. Contact the mind, the feelings, the memories, the emotions, the imaginings, as they are. starting to discover that wholeheartedness is not a purity that happens like in eclipse of the sun, rarely and briefly. Wholeheartedness is just to be what we already are. not to return to some way in which we're living out the world according to me.

[18:28]

It's not to return to that. It's to engage both the phenomena and the complexity of human consciousness with continuous contact. Steady awareness. You know, often at this point in Sushin, the tides that are pulling on us, one, the way practice has entered our body and entered our breath. The way, the schedule, in so many ways, asking us to just give over to what's happening now.

[19:36]

Our hesitancy, our resistance has softened. to sustain that diligence, but also to trust that in this more pliable, more available, more open state, to let what arises, arises and hold it in consciousness. Just noticing the plays of what comes up. Beyond good or bad. Beyond self-affirmation or self-denial.

[20:40]

To rest let our effort have some quality of ease. To trust in our own being. This is the challenge. Dogen Zenji goes on and he says, when even for a moment, Even for a moment, you sit upright expressing the Buddha Mudra. When you express presence in the three activities, body, speech and thought, the whole world becomes the Buddha Mudra.

[21:56]

And expresses Aliveness expresses enlightenment. From our self-involved state, we think, I'm practicing, I'm doing this, through my efforts, this will happen. But actually, as this poem so playfully points out, we can turn it on its head and say, well, the rattlesnake, the buzzard, the black panther, the piranhas, the locust, the alligator, the chichina, the horsefly, well, they're already enlightened. Maybe I just need to look around and watch how a tree

[22:58]

trees, how the sun shines, you know, how tatami tatamis. Or even more exquisite, watch our human beings. I was watching someone serve me and they were so diligent about the forms. They were giving me minuscule amounts of food, you know. But their form was perfect. They didn't spill a drop. Every moment was mindful. Watching a human being, human being. Even yourself. Watching the play of how you're influenced by what you experience.

[24:10]

Are you filled with respect for their sincerity? Or are you annoyed that it's taken them so long to give you the food you want? Does even the sun coming in the window make you feel more optimistic about life? Or does it seem like a dream in the midst of the heavy, real thoughts inside your head and your heart? As we loosen up around our determination in defining ourselves, the world, others, something comes alive.

[25:20]

This ever-changing interplay of existence reveals itself. when we bring presence, or as Dogen Zenji says, when we express, when we manifest the Buddha mudra, with body, with breath, with attention, everything being itself becomes a teaching. Even this amazing creation called me. It all becomes a teaching. What does it teach us? It teaches us that it's real and unreal. That it's this, in a human form, it's this great passion play of being alive.

[26:26]

When it's a tatami, it's this inconceivable dharma of tatami. I went to an art exhibition once and there was a photo of a rock. And underneath it said, it takes a rock 10,000 years to have a single breath. And I thought, oh, that's why it looks like it doesn't move. It takes so long to breathe. And that's why it lives so long. We hold the world within our ideas.

[27:40]

Someone told me that they were dating someone from India. And they were thinking of marriage. And what came into contrast were different notions of what qualifies as, what would you say, appropriate conditions for marriage. And the person from India was more disposed towards the notions of arranged marriage. You're kind of the right person. I'm kind of the right person. Opportunities there are. situations appropriate our parents will be happy and then the person from the united states was thinking but what about romance what about the beloved what about the perfect one for you

[29:01]

As we talked about it, they were saying, this is so compelling. I can't believe it's a conditioned state. It feels so true. How could it not be an absolute truth? Can we see the whole play? No? The content of the arising, the passion of the arising, the inclination to absolute conviction and conclusion. Can we see it as the passion play of a human life? can we see that liberation is in the non-grasping.

[30:20]

Liberation is not in don't be yourself. Diligence and discipline can take us so far, and they have. They brought us here. And now, Going beyond. The wholehearted practice of the way I'm speaking of allows all things to come forth in realization so that they may practice going beyond on the path of letting go. passing through the barrier of dualism, passing through what should or should not, what's right or wrong. This passing through reveals shunyata, reveals the characteristics of what reality

[31:46]

comes into expression as. It's impermanent. It has no fixed self. It arises out of causes and conditions. And we stake our life on it. We are wholehearted about it. Our wholeheartedness is not the obstacle. Our wholeheartedness is not the problem. Being who we are, being what we are, is not broken. How to let it flow?

[32:50]

How to not get lost in a dream? and then switch from a dream to an issue of control. This is the great inquiry. And I would suggest to you that today is the day. to listen and learn, to watch and learn. Usually we're so caught up in the intrigue of self. Ironically, we're kind of a mystery to ourselves. Often we're caught up in who we should be and how we're not managing to do it

[33:59]

in this moment where there is some capacity for deliberate involvement. Let that deliberate involvement be this kind of open attending. It's not that we abandon the discipline and the rigor of now. It's that as it becomes part of us, this can also be brought forth. That Zazen can be ease, can be something we let dine into. The body and breath can soften. The whole way dine to the bottom of our belly. that the mind can soften, that the world can bloom.

[35:19]

As Dogen Zinji says, when even for a moment you sit upright in continuous contact, In this form of Buddha, the whole world becomes Buddha. The entire sky turns into enlightenment. In this way, the ease of existence, the original source, awakens. becomes evident, becomes palpable. How else will we be wholehearted if we don't taste something of the fullness of being alive right in the midst of our complete dedication to practice?

[36:34]

How else will we relinquish some nagging ambivalence? I really want to do it. Are we done yet? How many more days? How many more aryaking meals? That moment when the bell rings and you go, ah. Just go like that when the period starts. And then repeat it with each exhale. Ah. Bodhidharma says, just... Engage everything as if you don't know.

[37:45]

What is a tree treeing? What's it like to be rooted in a spot for whole existence? To spread your being into the air and be blown back and forth by the wind, heated by the sun. And while we're at it, what's it like to be me? With the stories I tell myself. The memories. Like opening up a box and saying, I'll have this bitter one. Oh, yes. I really hate that. Why do we keep eating it then?

[38:59]

We look closely And we start to make more sense to ourselves. Because something in that theater, that well-rehearsed, repeated theater, calls forth something of profound significance for me. Bodhidharma says, don't know, don't know, don't know. And everything will be a teaching. Everything will be a discovery. Dogen Zenji says, the entire sky will be enlightening.

[40:10]

the grass, the tiles, the pebbles, the trees. Everything's enlightened, just looking at us saying, come on, come on, do it. Be yourself. It's not so hard. Look. Okay. In praise of self-depreciation, the buzzard has nothing to fault himself with. Scruples are alien to the Black Panther. Piranhas do not doubt the rightness of their actions. The rattlesnake approves of herself without reservations.

[41:17]

The self-critical jackal does not exist. The locusts, alligator, trichina, horsefly live as they live and are glad of it. The killer whale's heart weighs 100 kilos and in other respects is light. There's nothing more animal-like than a clear conscience on the third planet of the sun. 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.

[42:17]

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