... [...] Good evening. Last Sunday, I read an article in the New York Times. And it was about someone who was sort of practicing.

[01:16]

And his teacher talked him into, he was a Tibetan practitioner. And his teacher had set up, who was also a Westerner, they were both Westerners. And the teacher was sort of like a trainee teacher. And the trainee teacher had decided he would offer these, I'm just going to say trips, but experiences where, and it's a Tibetan practice. Do you know about it? This incomplete darkness? Yeah. I have to do that. This person, the person who was a sort of practitioner, he said he would like to spend a long weekend doing this practice where you're in a room and it's completely dark.

[02:27]

Like they make sure they seal up everywhere where light could get in. And actually, before I can dine for the talk, The office I'm in has a closet. And I went into the closet just to be. So if I get a little weird, you can think, oh. But the article was saying the guy described his experience. And I don't know if this happens to each one of us, but he He would have visions. He would have waking dreams and dreams, you know, he'd fall asleep. But after a while, he couldn't tell the difference because whether he closed his eyes or open, it was completely dark.

[03:29]

And time got distorted. If you can find it, it's a very entertaining article. He writes in a kind of flamboyant way. But it set me thinking about this notion of how each of us is trying to hold it together, you know. make our life work, have a version of reality that the word I'm going to use is homeostasis. You know, the body, it originally was addressed to the human body. Like you have your circulatory system, your digestive system. You have all sorts of systems in your being, in your physical being.

[04:38]

And then they're all trying to harmonize. And I was thinking, when I read the article, and actually while I was reading the article, are we all susceptible to just things going haywire? If you just put us all in a dark room for a couple of days, Do we all just have these hallucinations, these memories, vivid memories, and anticipations, and waking dreams, and does time get distorted? And it made me think about our usual efforts. Like, we create normal.

[05:42]

And then, whether we like it or not, we're sort of committed to normal. And then we add into it likes and dislikes and how they play out. into all sorts of things, falling in love, having bitter enemies that you loathe. Once I had a friend who was, for a while, he was a heroin addict, and he talked to me about how ashamed he felt because he had just broken into his best friend's apartment and stole his money to buy heroin. And the thing was, he was quite sincerely saddened and apologetic.

[06:54]

And it set me thinking, so I think each of us has a notion about practice. And each of us could probably tell a pretty good story about it. But I wonder about the influences on us. in a couple of days, we're going to have Sajiki. I actually thought that I would put on a wizard's hat. But then I decided, no, maybe Sajiki's enough. I should hold normal in a way that's

[08:02]

And right in its predictability, normal has this delicate relationship with experiencing. And how delicate the human condition is. Like even the homeostasis of the body. If you don't eat enough, you feel kind of weird. If you eat too much, you feel kind of weird. If you don't exercise, your body gets sluggish. If you exercise too much, that knocks your body off.

[09:03]

There's a narrow response to sustaining our being. And I had the notion that in reading that article, that in a way, we sort of know what's good for us. But our desires and aversions sort of make it not that easy to follow. And then in another way, there's something mysterious about our being. That it's not so black and white. It It has, as you know, each day we do a noontime chant and Dogen Zenji sing in his fascicle.

[10:19]

It's not simply recognized by cognition, that there's something in practice that goes beyond the cognition. then how do we find our way with what's obvious, what's cognized, what's conceptualized, and what's not? Especially when you think that we're always in some intrigue between what we want and what we don't want and the current circumstances. I'd like to do a little experiment with you. I'm going to read these. It's from a teaching by John O'Donohue.

[11:26]

He wrote a book called Bless the Space Between Us, A Book of Blessings. And this is just a list of questions. But if you can try to feel how it is hear this list of questions. Where did my eyes linger today? Where was I blind? Where was I hurt without anyone noticing? What did I learn today? What did I read? What new thoughts visited me? What differences did I notice, notice, in those closest to me? Whom did I neglect? Where did I neglect myself? What did I begin today that might endure? How were my conversations?

[12:29]

What did I do today for the poor and the excluded? Did I remember the dead today? When could I have exposed myself to the risk of something different? Where did I allow myself to receive love? With whom did I feel most myself? What reached me today? How did it imprint? Who saw me today? What visitations had I from the past and from the future? Did I avoid anything today? From the evidence, what was I given this day?

[13:33]

How is it to hear all those? Did you find your mind sort of wandered with some of them? Did you find your mind thought, yeah, I should ask myself that. Where did I allow myself to receive love? anyone care to say which one stood out for them? I thought of you when I read that. Anyone else? Go ahead Kevin.

[14:40]

What did I learn today? Thank you. I think it was something like, where did I risk something new? Oh, let me find it. It was something about risk and you. Yes. When could I have exposed myself to the risk of something different? Yeah. And then can we hold it all with a kind of benevolent curiosity, you know, in noticing that, you know, a human life is quite fragile.

[15:41]

That's sort of what I got from the article about being in the dark. I thought, hmm, but blind people are in the dark all the time. And with that wonderful human way that we attempt to normalize, that we attempt to bring in a kind of homeostasis a harmony of being. And is this what it is to take refuge? We find the harmony of being by bringing a benevolent attention to what the day unfolds.

[16:46]

to what you're unfolding of your life. Where did my eyes linger today? Where were you? Not exactly intending, but just happens. Some of our behavior we don't quite intend it. It just happens. And then we have this marvelous practice, 2,500 years of deep practitioners giving us the benefit of their teachings. Yeah. And even though now we're blessed, you know, it used to be you had to walk for six miles for six months to hear the teaching.

[18:07]

And now you just pull out your smartphone and there it is. But in the midst of that abundance, would any of it be so rich and influential if it wasn't delivered with a sense of wonder, a sense of open risk open to hearing the wonderful teachings you know at the start of our talks we say I vowed to hear the Buddha way I vow to meet this moment

[19:17]

and be available in this moment that the Dharma can sink into me. And I would add to that, like once I was at Tassajara and we were doing orioke and then it got to a line that I must have chanted by that time hundreds of times. And as I held up the bowl, I chanted the line. And then all of a sudden, it was like, really? That's why we're eating? To enable us to practice? And it just, something registered. And so in the chant we start, talks with we say and unsurpassed penetrating and perfect Dharma is rarely met with and I'm going to do it and then that gets mixed in with the amazing complexity of being human you know

[20:46]

How do we blend the wisdom that we add to our chants and our rituals? How do we blend that with this intriguing event called normal, that we're reconstructing and changing. Sometimes we dedicate ourselves to, OK, I am going to not do that. I'm going to do this. this is my priority and I'm going to put my energy into it. Can we do that and also at the same time recognize the complexity of our being, some of which we're in touch with and some of which we're not?

[22:07]

Can there be this rigorous intentionality? And almost paradoxically, can it be coupled with a curiosity? I was thinking, you know, I only met John O'Donoghue once, but I thought he was a lovely person. Somewhere between a philosopher and a psychotherapist and, in some ways, a sacred being. When I was reading the list, I was thinking, how was it for him? Did they all just tumble out of him in one way? shower of ideas or were these questions he'd asked himself over time.

[23:17]

Where was I blind? Sometimes that has to do with our sight and then sometimes it has to do with just being so caught up in ourselves We don't notice that the person in front of us is having a difficult experience or a joyous experience. We're blind to it. What new thoughts visited me? That sense of, We're always, even though we're soothed by normal, well, maybe we're not soothed by normal, but when normal has a proximity with homeostasis, then we're soothed.

[24:28]

And still, there's always change. And how to hold this mix and bring it to our cushion. And that detailed way of attending to your body and your mind and what's going on in both. And how can there be an intentionality in the middle of that, that just says just what it is. It will be whatever it will be, and shikkantaza is to experience that. Can we remind ourselves of that each time we sit down to do meditation?

[25:37]

or to be meditation, to be zaza. And then we can look at how these are expressed, this homeostasis. You know, when we say I vow to take refuge in sangha, bringing harmony to everyone, free from suffering, free from hindrance. How do we bring that forth? How do we stay alive? and present and curious about what happens for us.

[26:42]

You know, it's been my experience in having conversations with people, one-on-one conversations with people, that almost everybody, when they start sitting, they're... There are periods of time when they have no idea what's going on. Sometimes it's because it's so new, there's no vocabulary for it. And sometimes it's like that guy who was in the room that was completely darkened. The way he describes it, and I hope you can find the article. I couldn't when I... I was going to read it again this afternoon. But even in zazen, normal can dissolve.

[27:58]

And then all sorts of things can happen. And then as we continue to sit, something in us discovers how to regulate that. It's not that it stops. It's more that it's not so tantalizing and all-consuming. With this notion of coming at it with deep curiosity. And with a sense of wonder, you know, that's mixed in with that curiosity. And then, as we sit, we're getting clues about this homeostasis, this coming into harmony

[29:05]

of the body, the breath, the mind, and the content of mind. And there's a way in which we can carry that into our day. Even if our the mind is saying, oh, well, I was just distracted most of the time. Something registers. There's a way in which we've been making contact with the complexity of our own being. And as we do that, as we try to live that, we start to have different ways we can make contact with it.

[30:14]

Maybe that's what stimulated John O'Donoghue to write all these wonderful questions. When I read them, I marvel at how it fills the world with possibilities. I think a world of possibilities sort of intrigues us. after all these questions, we could ask, and now what? What will the next step take?

[31:19]

What will it look like? And the last thing I'd like to mention is how this process of awakening comes to life and is represented in our rituals. Like the ritual of Sajiki. We set up the altar and then we invite. And within our rituals, there's more a sense of we than just separate self. There's more a sense of interbeing than singular being.

[32:27]

And so when we are inviting the spirits, the hungry spirits to come here, we're not distinguishing between maybe outside of our being and the inside of our being. And then in our other ceremonies, we're bowing to the Buddha within and the Buddha without. The Buddha, the finder of our tradition, and we're buying to the Buddha of the whole assembly, the whole sangha. And when we chant, we give our body and breath and sound over to the chanting.

[33:38]

There was a time at Zen Center where we had discussions about should we or should we not chant in English? The notion was that when we chant in Japanese, since most of us don't speak Japanese, we're more attentive attentive to the sound that we make. If you chant with listening to the tone, the rhythm of the sangha, the collective sound of the sangha, if you listen to it, your body does the rest. Your body discovers harmony. I'm of the notion that this is an important teaching for us to discover this harmony that we don't cognize, we don't create it with our ideas.

[34:58]

It discovers itself in this way of becoming attuned and being part of what's happening. And in this way, each of the ceremonies, the rituals that we have, it has woven into it this expression of Dharma. And in some ways, the Dharma that goes beyond what we cognize. For instance, in a Buddhist teaching, there are three kayas, three realms of existence.

[36:00]

There's the dharmakaya, which is going beyond all fixed and fixed notions of being and then there's nirmanakaya which is the manifest the world that arises out of our karma and then there's the sambhogakaya where those two the one that goes beyond our thinking and the one that's the product of our thinking and behaving, when they come together, when that has harmony, the teaching is that when these two come together, there is harmony and there is a joy that happens.

[37:10]

in our being. And so woven into our rituals and woven into our practice together is an attempt to live this harmony between the different forces of being, the different aspects of being. And it's not like, well, let me hold that concept in my head and then I'll go and do zazen and make it happen. It's more like listening deeply to the chant of the blend of voices chanting together. And then your own body, your own sound,

[38:17]

finds its harmony with them. This is one of what I think of as one of the magical aspects of practicing together, that in a way we give over and then the harmony arises. That in our sincere practice, we immerse body and mind deeply in the way. And something awakens. Let me end just by reading the list again. Where did my eyes linger today?

[39:20]

Where was I blind? Where was I hurt without anyone noticing? What did I learn today? What did I read? What new thoughts visited me? What differences did I notice in those closest to me? Whom did I neglect? Where did I neglect myself? What did I begin today that might endure? How were my conversations? What did I do today for the poor and the excluded? Did I remember the dead today? When could I have exposed myself to the risk of something different?

[40:28]

Where did I expose myself to the risk of something different? Where did I allow myself to receive love? With whom did I feel most myself? What reached me today? How did it imprint? Who saw me today? What visitations had I from the past and from the future? What did I avoid today? From the evidence, what was I given today? Thank you. Amen.

[41:46]

If you look at me, I'm going to say, [...]

[42:17]

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