Good evening. I hope for those of you who are just coming here and hearing this talk, it makes sense. It's coming out of a mind that's immersed in these thoughts over the last five weeks, so I'm not quite sure if it'll make sense if you haven't heard the background, but I hope it will. I'm going to start with a piece from Jiju Yuzamai, Dogen's fascicle, self-receiving and employing samadhi.

[01:02]

How engaging the self, being aware of the self illustrates the process of awakening. Quite a lovely thought in my mind. Now everyone who's upheld the Buddha Dharma has made it So, through the unfolding of sitting upright, practicing in the midst of receptive awareness, without depending on incense offering, bowing, chanting Buddha's names, repentance, or reading scriptures. Just wholeheartedly sitting and dropping off body and mind. And even for a moment, you sit upright like this, expressing the Buddha mudra in the three activities of body, speech, and mind.

[02:16]

The whole world, in its phenomenal existence, becomes that Buddha mudra, and the entire sky turns into enlightenment. So there you are. when even for a moment. So, I'd like to start by having a moment together, a moment of noticing, a moment of enlightenment. And I have a technique to call forth that moment. I mean, the amazing truth is we're always having moments. Why aren't they all utterly awakening, illuminating the entire world? So, here's my proposal.

[03:20]

I'll offer you a description. For those of you who were in the class a couple of nights ago, you'll recognize it, because here it is again. So if you could sit upright, let yourself be balanced. In particular, can you let the front of your body be open? Your stomach, your chest, your stomach, your abdomen relaxed, your face relaxed, your shoulders relaxed. Not so much trying to impose something on them as much as just inviting them to release. Letting even the sound of the siren relax. And then two breaths. For the first breath, breathing out through the mouth.

[04:23]

The mouth is open and you breathe out as slowly and gradually as you can. Very slow, gentle breath. And then the second breath. couple of breaths, three breaths, of keeping the body soft and relaxed, extending the exhale, breathing out through the mouth is closed, breathing out through the nose. A soft sigh, like the quality of a sigh, and just extending that exhale.

[05:27]

the bottom of the exhale, a pause, and then just release, letting the inhale happen as an automatic reflex. If you've done three breaths like that, just being. No agenda, no following the breath, no trying to arrange your experience in any way. Just noticing whatever happens, just noticing the experience of the moment, just as it is, without any agenda. It's not the end of my talk.

[07:39]

Maybe it should be for our mutual edification, but unfortunately I'm going to continue talking. In many of his fascicles, Dogen talks about this noticing, this directly experiencing what's happening in the moment as the touchstone of as of the heritage of the Buddha way, of the way of awakening. Just exactly what we were doing a few moments ago. This is the touchstone of it. This is the amazing human capacity that can guide us. support us, inspire us, instruct us in the process of awakening.

[08:41]

And then in this fascicle he's saying, and this is engaged through upright sitting. And he's both thinking, he's both expressing zazen, and he's also expressing any moment of being fully present. And then he goes on to say, and this carries the character of the Zen school, and it says before offering incense, before bowing and chanting and repentance and reading scriptures, just wholeheartedly sit, wholeheartedly be what is, wholeheartedly notice. And in the process, drop off body and mind. And here what he's talking about is the way in which noise appears out of nowhere.

[09:57]

And it can either be a miraculous occurrence or it can be something annoying, disturbing, you know, me. I am disturbed. It interrupted my serenity. Can that drop away? Can the noticing be so thorough? Can it be so committed that the usual activity falls away? And in that falling away, the disposition of being, it's almost like it vibrates. It has its own fullness, it has its own authority. It's like we get back in touch with something we've always known.

[11:09]

We're always having moments. Usually they become enveloped in the me, in the body and mind of self-referencing. But they're always close by. The theme of this practice period is continuous practice, like the opportunity to practice is always right here. And this is, in the process of Jijiu Zamai, this particular piece of a longer fascicle is a traditional Chant in Zen Buddhist service, in Soto Zen Buddhist service.

[12:19]

You know, it's considered to capture the essence of what Dogen's message was. So, in the practice period, we're chanting it every noon service. You're welcome to come and chant with us. The whole phenomenal world becomes the Buddha mudra. In noticing what's happening now and allowing it to be itself, there's a knowing, there's awakeness, there's an expression of being of that awakeness. That's the Buddha mudra, that expression, disposition of being. in everything that happens is included. In that openness, the sound arises like a miraculous gift, rather than a limiting factor on being imposed upon us, disrupting.

[13:43]

displacing something. Okay, so that's the theory. And now, the hindrances. How come that's not happening in every moment? Well, I talked some about this on Saturday, and there I was talking more about the perspective of energy. This is the life force, and this life force becomes dissipated into the agendas of our being. My agenda is calm, concentrated serenity, and the noise of the siren is interfering. But in its interference, my attention, my response, you know, my disapproval is energized.

[14:52]

And the energy of now is dissipated. See, I'd rather focus on that than on that, focus on how it is for us psychologically. Our psychological being has its agendas. It's the construct that has come into being to further our well-being, to further our happiness, to further a state of security, stability, all the agendas that arise for us as humans. And we endeavor, consciously and unconsciously, most of it unconsciously, to pursue those agendas.

[16:00]

And as we do, awareness of now is set aside in our diligent pursuit of our agendas. But when we set aside awareness, we go into a kind of dreamlike state. So this is why Dogen says, the noticing, the being present, the sitting upright, in continuous contact, is the touchstone of the practice. The awareness of now is the teacher, and it's the expression of what's being taught. The agendas of our psychological being

[17:07]

have their own description of reality. And as we pursue that, as we enact that, something of the pristine state of now disappears. And in Buddhist terms, this functioning that thwarts now, that thwarts awareness, are formulated as the five hindrances. And as many of you have heard me saying, I've been searching for a less pejorative term. But as you can see, I haven't come up with it yet. Because this is, in its engagement, it's a very delicate process for us. Engaging our psychological being is our best effort at finding what we think and feel will make us truly happy, make us truly content, make us feel truly secure.

[18:30]

So to start, even though As we live it, we see that so far it hasn't quite done that. Pursuing what we desire hasn't quite left us with a steep sense of contentment and fulfillment. Having aversion towards what we don't want hasn't quite eliminated it from our lives. But still, it stays active. So can the moments of awareness be profoundly instructive about the human condition? As we bring moments of awareness, we start to see and feel and experience the activity and the consequence of our moments of unawareness. a phrase that occurred to me a while back was we settle into our unsettledness like for most people when they start to meditate after a while as they start to cultivate some awareness one of the things that really surprises them is how unaware they are

[20:08]

As you start to settle into making contact with what's going on, you start to notice how much you're not in contact, how readily your mind can engage in a way where there isn't presence, and when presence returns, it's even mysterious as to where the mind was when it was not present. So the formulation of the five hindrances is to start to give us some clues as to how we might engage this process of unawareness. But the significant challenge for us is twofold. One, that it doesn't simply become part

[21:13]

of our psychological agenda. And so when Dogen's talking about dropping off body and mind, he's talking about how can we engage this process, not as me getting what I want and avoiding what I don't want, but engaging it on the naked terms of noticing. You know, what's happening now is not what do I want to have happen now, what do I not want to have happen now, it's what's happening now. You know, the whole premise of continuous practice is that this is it. It might be a pleasant, this is it. It might be an unpleasant, this is it. But either way, this is it. And so as we engage with momentary awareness, it's instructing us on the disposition of awareness.

[22:26]

It's instructing us on what it is to not be defined by the urgencies of the self. And it's somewhat humbling because we discover quite quickly that the urgencies of the self are extraordinarily powerful. And the challenge for us is to almost like accept that humbly. That this human existence is embroiled in these agendas.

[23:30]

And that as we attend to them, we will indeed discover they're not simply a negative force. in the way in which they propel us into unawareness, they separate us from the vitality of being. They separate us from the innate wisdom and compassion of our being. But as we connect to them, as we're literally experiencing them, there is a rediscovery. There's an awakening to, you know, the wisdom and compassion of our being. It's an awakening to the innate nobility of the human condition. As that sense of self, as we explore it, we realize that it's only in our fear that it's small and limited.

[24:35]

As we awaken to it, we realize that that sense of self includes everybody. And often in our practice, when it has that inclusion, it's almost like a sense of relief. I heard someone say, quite recently, that generosity is the antidote to fear. fearful relationship to self-preservation is what compels us to contract and separate. And so we're doing that psychologically. We're doing that in the realm of awareness.

[25:36]

So if we can hold the proposition of the hindrances in that regard, oh, These are points of access that can help shift from the contracting nature of small self to the expanding nature of big self. Greater being, connected being, call it whatever you want, Buddha mudra. Is it? You know, as Dogen puts it in his exquisite way, the whole world of phenomena becomes the Buddha mudra and the entire sky, the entire expansiveness of being turns into awakening. So can it be, can we invite ourselves into that disposition

[26:46]

as we look at the hindrances. And in some ways, maybe it would be too strong to say it's a prerequisite, but in some ways it's very helpful because in our avoidance, I mean, our avoidance happens, our separation, our unawareness happens motivated by at its core, self-preservation, motivated by the urgency of thriving. So to hold that urgency, to start making contact with it, with kind of an insightful approach. There's something noble about this urgency.

[27:49]

There's something utterly appropriate about it. And then there's something misguided. There's something maladaptive. When this habit was forming in a momentary experience, it had its appropriateness. And now it's being repeated in a whole variety of circumstances that it has limited appropriateness. So can I start to see it? Can I start to unpack it and discover appropriate response. It's not to annihilate. It's the propensities of the self. It's to just illuminate them so they can become skillful. And this is Dogen in Gigi Ozama. He's saying, we study the self to discover this awakening of the self. the Buddhas are enlightened about conditioned being.

[28:53]

In the midst of conditioned being we have a dream of awakening. The process of awakening is unfolding the conditioned self. And then in the classic list, The first one, you know, before I described it as desire. Classically, I looked it up in the translation of the early text, and it says sensory desire, desiring what arises through the senses. And, of course, that readily and quickly becomes desire, as in a more common sense. And then, of course, desire takes on a certain kind of mythology. I'll never be happy until I have this or that.

[30:02]

And then the second one is ill will. In some ways we could say the resentment of our desires not being fulfilled. I resent not getting what I want. I resent the interactions that are unpleasant. And sometimes I attribute that to particular people. to particular situations, to particular kinds of engagement. These become the triggers of my aversion. And they take on the traits that have evolved through my continual involvement in this way.

[31:15]

So the desire takes on its own mythology and the aversion takes on its own mythology. And the nature of mythology is dreamlike. It comes up and we are entranced. And the originality, the vitality, the authority of what's happening now, the astute information of noticing is swamped by the entrancement of the dream. And this is why making, this is why it becomes challenging for us to see clearly the nature of the hindrance because it sort of enchants us.

[32:20]

In the formula I suggested, which is just my own version of what it says in the sutras, or my own articulation of it, notice, acknowledge. Can the mind become an agent? Oh, this is how I'm formulating this experience. Right now, my disposition is That's what makes me happy. Or avoidance of that is what makes me happy, safe, secure, feel good about myself, whatever. And then how does that manifest in the body-mind of being? Does it manifest as an assertive thought

[33:29]

Does it manifest as its strong feeling? Does it manifest as an embodied physiological experience? And not to say they're separate, they're interwoven. And Dogen's saying, indeed you use Am I engaging that self, bringing awareness to it, experiencing it, And then more suddenly he's saying, at the heart of that engagement, something like a no-self. And noticing the drops of ownership. Another place he says, you study it so thoroughly, you forget to be the self. You're so...

[34:32]

attentive to the particulars of it, the part of our being that says, this is me, gets forgotten. This is a tightening in my solar plexus. This is a persistent thought that says, this is what makes me happy. This is an upwelling emotion that has these characteristics to it. As we engage in that way, the formulation that's packaging it as me is forgotten. And we study, we engage the energy, the awareness of like and dislike. And then the next couplet are, in our discontent we separate profoundly.

[35:54]

Sometimes we separate so profoundly the body feels like a heavy weight. It becomes sluggish. Pay close attention, you may notice that sometimes in our separation, even our nasal passages get clogged. Sometimes we become heavy, and the heaviness invites an achiness. A lethargy. Sometimes it invites a numbness. And then the other side of it is that sometimes in its distress, the unsatisfactoriness is agitating, it's turbulent, it's restless.

[37:03]

There's an absence of a willingness to abide. And again, there's ways in which we're hardwired and we certainly have the psychological impulses to not feel and experience these things, these very human responses. Part of us is saying, okay, I'll just avoid that. I'll avoid that way of being. I'll distract myself. I'll suppress it. I'll deny it. So in some ways it's a powerfully courageous act to turn towards you. And that's why I say it's... Well, I would stop and say it's an absolute prerequisite, this willingness. It's very helpful. You know, in the class I was teaching related to this, I was saying in some ways we can look at the five faculties of awakening

[38:16]

as preparing the grind for this courageous act. And then the fifth one is doubt. Here we are, this limited subjective being. There is no absolute conviction we can bring to the experience of being human. As we attend to the moment, something can be met directly. But there isn't exhaustive knowing. There is a momentary spark but our minds want to conclude.

[39:17]

Therefore, I know such and such. And in our own wisdom, when we see that I don't know, absolutely, there can be, in that lack of conviction, there can be an uneasiness. There can be a search for certainty. And the feeling, the lack of certainty, has its own discomfort. In the heritage of Zen practice, this not knowing can be an ally. It's an agent of learning. It's an agent of being willing to experience. We can let the five hindrances become an intriguing proposition.

[40:30]

And just how is this self expressing itself? How is it coming forth? When you find yourself having an intense response to a particular situation, person, thought, perspective. Now, what is going on? What are the attributes of this intensity that's happening right now? Rather than grasping it, this exploring it, investigating it, and letting it This is the request of the hindrances. Sometimes, even reflectively, we look back a couple of hours later, what was happening to me then?

[41:47]

You know, Why was I yelling at the top of my voice? Why could I not look that person in the eye? Why did my body feel like it was being squished? But not a why that then starts to generate ideas, but a why that investigates what was happening. What was being experienced at that time? What were the thoughts? What were the feelings? What was the physical sensations? And then, of course, if we can do this in the moment, it's all the richer, it's all the more accurate. And so our continuous practice our continuous endeavor in awareness is not the product of some continuous success.

[42:59]

It's not the product of continuous mastery. It's not the product of having manufactured the right, the ideal situation. It's more the humility of recognizing and acknowledging that we're utterly intertwined with this unfolding conditioned being. Every one of us. It's just simply part of our existence. And Dogen Zenji keeps reminding us and we have everything it needs to wake up in the middle of it. That's what all the great sages have been teaching.

[44:02]

That's what all the great sages do, and in the doing communicate and transmit that way. 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 sfzc.org and click Giving. May we fully enjoy the Dharma.

[44:44]

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