This podcast is offered by the San Francisco Zen Center on the web at www.sfzc.org. Our public programs are made possible by donations from people like you. Gyochi Zenji, as he does in most of his fascicles, sort of makes a statement of his propositions for the fascicle. And then in this one, that's twelve paragraphs, and in this one he goes into a series of anecdotes about different practitioners, great sages, notable Zen teachers. And the first one is about Mahakashapa, you know, Buddha's cohort from the good old days.

[01:10]

And then his Dharma hour. And then the second one is about Harishipa. And that's one I wanted to mention this morning. Ahem. To my mind, one of the most notable things about Harishiba was that he spent 60 years in the womb. And I know the skeptics among you are thinking, wait a minute. Now, if his mother was 15 when she got pregnant, she carried him until she was 75. Yeah. Well, that would be a story all of its own, wouldn't it? She doesn't even get a mansion. But the interesting thing about spiritual stories is that they take liberties, you know.

[02:27]

they stretch the conventional, the possible, the probable. Like that story about Acheon Funk, 10 years he and a tiger coexisted in a cave. Was there a man and a tiger? Those are the two aspects of a person that became one, that indeed he stayed human. As far as I know, I saw him in the flesh and yet something else was going on. I was writing to someone about being here and I said, And when the Zen monks are here for a while, they become kind of scary.

[03:36]

They go feral. I think that's why Acha and Fung scared me so much. I think I was seeing more of the tiger than the human. even though he had a smile, didn't fool me. So Hari Shiba, 60 years in the womb. But who doesn't live in the womb? Who doesn't live inside some cocoon of me? with its past and its present and its future its likes and dislikes its way of creating and recreating reality its insistence upon there's a boundary between me and the rest of existence

[04:55]

a necessary boundary for me to stay alive, for me to be safe. Maybe the improbable part of the story is that he came out of the womb after 60 years. dilemma the intrigue of the human condition our conventional land says okay let's be factual it's not physically possible to gestate for 60 years as far as we know that's an accurate statement

[06:06]

But we weave around it, we use it to build. Amazingly, we insist that fact lives with me inside the womb of me. All sorts of facts and information. and details and experiences. Yes, there's room in here for that. But that boundary, don't ask me to come out. And what is it to come out? And what is it to stay in? such a process.

[07:15]

We've all had our glimpses of greater being, of interbeing, and yet the allure of the world, according to me, is so intoxicant and paradoxically unsatisfied. Somehow we listened to the story of it and then at some point said, I wonder if there's something better than this. I wonder if there's a remedy for this. If you think back in the first machine where I read that whimsical poem by William Stafford, the prisoner who insists on keeping the prison door shut. Keep your blades to stab out.

[08:16]

As we continue with our practice, there's a kind of a general immersion. We start to see more of the vignettes, more of the experiences, more of the attitudes, the memories, the anticipations. Even the way a particular moment in awareness can be edited. We notice this, but not that. Or we experience and we associate and with the growing continuity of awareness of attention we see the fluctuations of the human condition we see the active participation of me

[09:41]

in creating the moment. How a memory can become enlivened and adamant. And talk about miracles. In immersion in that memory, the body disappears. Now disappears. in its usual physical manifestation. And then we have the audacity to say, 60 years in the womb? That's a tall story. 10 years living with the tiger? Oh, come on. Or is the myth of Claude McNoise A sailing ship sailing through his endo?

[10:42]

Truly, every one of us has let sail some flight of their own imagination, of their own internal process. Can you imagine how cluttered the earth space would be if they were all physically manifest? That would be really scary. And as we let all this in, as we let in the immensity of the human condition, individually, collectively, one way we could say we realize how much trouble we really are in oh I occasionally very occasionally get a little distracted most of the time I'm totally in the moment seeing it for what it is appreciating the suchness of it thoughts and feelings float through like a spring breeze then we pay closer attention

[12:19]

And we see what an extraordinary intrigue being alive is. It's actually the moments of simple attention or the miraculous moments. What was that? Nothing was happening. The only devil realization. And it shakes our world. So the story is like this.

[13:21]

Harry Sheba, 60 years in the womb, comes out then for reasons best knowing to himself decides that he'll start to practice and decides that since he's 60 he better get on with it in fact there's a little vignette in this story where some young man sort of pokes at him and says but you're already an old guy you know But it just prompts him into diligence. And Doug's point to whoever's reading his fascicle is, see, get on with it, you know, get moving. But the great gift of mindless practice, you know,

[14:25]

Ceaseless, continuous involvement is... In a very real way, there's really no option. Well, maybe there is an option. We can stay in the womb. We can try to make things work there. Okay. It's a little crowded. There's a limited amount of activities possible here. But maybe I can make this work. But it seems to me there's something in the human condition we sense greater being. Maybe it's those glimpses of going beyond that beckon us.

[15:39]

Interestingly, that come from soon after we left the womb, in a more literal sense. And in the ceaseless practice, we experience the fluctuation of the human condition. And then the challenges are this so-called human condition that we have been editing as it goes along. I'm going to think more about that. No, that didn't happen. I didn't see it. Because I was busy thinking more about that. And if it didn't happen, if I didn't see it, it didn't happen. So there. It doesn't get included.

[16:43]

This highly subjective version of existence. And can we... Almost paradoxically, can we accept it and through it, through opening to it, through yes, let it open to interbeing. Because it illustrates interbeing. We are always outside the womb, even though there's all sorts of lovely stories about being in it. We came out long ago. We've always intervened with everything. And as we let this in, something shifts in our practice.

[17:55]

This is me doing this in relationship to that. And it has a now, and it has what happened before, and it has what's going to happen after. And as we enter B, we see all of that is a way to connect, a way to understand, a way to engage this flow of existence that we're part of. And as we settle into Shashim and Shashin, like the spring breeze blows us apart, petal by petal.

[19:06]

And we find those thoughts arising all after Shishin, or somewhere that I'm calling not here, I'm calling there. sometime before or after that I'm calling not now. And here and now have more plausibility. They seem less of the miraculous moment that I want to visit and then quickly return to me so I can tell others about it and tell myself about it and have conclusions about it.

[20:19]

And as Hashin gently and roughly and demandingly takes us apart here and now become more plausible. And we start to get it that Shin has no beginning and no end. This is the human condition. We're just engaging it in a particular way right now. This is what we came through the mountains to be part of. Whether we knew it or not. And in a way, we can relax.

[21:38]

not that we're suddenly going to stop making trouble for ourselves no it's not that we're going to stop asserting the validity of before and after and here and there it's that there's a growing sensibility that it's all part of now. And then a growing sensibility of the extraordinary notion of what would it be like to start to live as if now was now and here was here. before and after and here and there have their function they're just part of here and now amazingly I have a poem about this for those of you who notice which is probably

[23:09]

I don't know, did anybody notice that yesterday I said I was going to read two poems and only write one? You did? Yeah. Okay. There you go. I would say, listen to this, a timeless moment. Lots of particulars. In a way, no beginning or end. Who's this coming to the ash pit? Walking tall, as if in a procession, bearing in front of her a slender pan withdrawn just now from underneath the firebox. Weighty, full to the brim with whitish dust and flakes, still sparking hot, that the wind is blowing into her apron bib, into her mouth and eyes when she proceeds, unwavering.

[24:12]

Keeping her burden horizontal still, hands in a tight sore grip around the medan knob. Proceeds until we've lost sight of her with the worn path turns behind the henhouse. an interesting way in which in the midst of beginningless and endless the moment exactly itself and in a way with no conclusion and therefore She was a wonderful person.

[25:12]

And therefore, having a fire is a big nuisance. It always requires tending. In awareness, they just hang there like arbitrary adornments. We could put this on that story. Yeah. Or not. And what of the stories that could conjure up for us? As you tend to the stuff of being in Shishin. Can they be given that much authority?

[26:19]

Maybe we could say, can they be given that much inconclusive authority? Or unconclusive? And how that way of relating illuminates the persistence the insistence of the narrative of what's added of how the moment can be swallowed up the story of me. And then the very same me gives birth and presence and awareness of what is.

[27:37]

And the great gift of all this is It refines our effort. The whole notion of me doing this activity to create this magnificent result called awareness. This is the natural occurrence of interbeing. letting the hand of thought open and receive the experience. And we start to see the methodology, the admonitions, you know. We start to see conduct and observance of the precepts, both in there,

[28:48]

the restraint I vow not to and then we also see them in as in our tradition the one mind those of you who don't know when we do the full moon ceremony which we'll do very soon the doshi then reads or tense, Bodhidharma's one mind version. That one, the prohibition being refrained from this, this is what distracts, undermines limits, awareness. And then from the place of awareness, this is how this becomes relevant. And the place of awareness is integrated.

[29:56]

It's non-dual. So we call it one mind. Now, did Bodhidharma indeed write them? Who knows? Maybe it's another miraculous story. Or maybe he did. As I said before, quoting Suzuki Roshi, maybe gets a lot of credibility in Soto Zen. Works both ways. Obliges us to not grasp and to not push away. one mind precept of awareness.

[31:04]

What are the yogic pointers, the yogic admonitions, the yogic learning, the yogic vritta, that experiential learning that comes from engaging the practice. How do we stay true to that? Each time sitting down, attending to what is, rediscovering, reconnecting, realigning. seeing the subtle play between ideas and directed attention that opens to the experience.

[32:13]

Where ideas are helpful and instructive and where they get in the way. This is the subtle exploration, the subtle rediscovery of the one mind precepts. And Dogen's admonition, moving slowly, calmly, quietly, and deliberately. Even if you look back on a period of Zazen and think, oh, that wasn't such a good one. I wasn't that settled. Still, there's something to be learned, something to be carried forth into standing up, into walking, into acting. You know, the allure of Heaney's poem, attention.

[33:32]

Hinted at by two words, horizontal still. The ashes blowing in her face. Horizontal still. As she walked. The attention finds as a close ally to detail not because there must be the correct result but because attention facilitates connection and connection opens the door experiencing into being in whatever the experience is experience helps shed light on the version of reality edited manufactured by me it invites in greater being

[35:04]

I know this sign's anatomically painful, but if you're not willing to leave the womb, can the womb open and include everything? You can think of that already. Where is she? Take it away. Oh, there you are. Maybe that's how you give birth, you know, inside and outside. And in a way, my diligence shifts. It shifts from me doing this to

[36:12]

Allowing what is to express its being. It's just sitting. It's just being. There's all sorts of wonderful paradoxical statements. Effortless effort. Stillness in the midst of motion. non-doing, in-doing. And I would say, letting the me-doing soften, loosen. As Dogen Senji says, forget. Forget the me. And allow the doing to be the shobshin the fluidity this fluidity of awareness okay this experience this experience the near enemy of directed attention is that it inhibits receptive attention but as we immerse

[37:43]

and interbeing as an inevitable expression of what is. We are human beings. We're put together a certain way. Referencing from the singularity of self an inevitable process. Now relating to it, discovering within it how not to be unborn, how to come forth and intervene. This is the great intrigue of our practice. And yet, we've never been any other way. We've always been part of everything.

[38:44]

we always and are interbeing. And the near enemy of interbeing is that we can become kind of dreamy or casual. Oh, yeah, yeah. We're just cruising into Shin. Another couple of days, I'll be over. Another period, it'll be lunch. Another few periods, it'll be dinner. Just got to get through that. Never be born and never be alive.

[39:49]

The great teaching of infants is the ferocious commitment to being alive. Boy, are they committed. And it is continuous. Pick up the details of practices. With something of a softer attitude. As she carried the ashtray. Was she filled with bitterness? Why do I always have to do this? Why doesn't somebody else do it sometimes? Why don't they empty their own bloody ice? Now was she almost bursting out laughing at the absurdity of the ice, hot and tickling on her face, unable to see where she was going.

[41:24]

just the memory of having walked that path a thousand times. And as Dogen liked to say, you know, regardless, the activity, the presence, the being of it is undefiled. It's not limited by whatever the mind generates. And how that supports our continuous effort and our continued words. The mind generates in relationship to its karmic associations. So weird. And at a certain point, the kitchen crew will get out and walk out.

[42:38]

And in a way, to totally dedicate and commit to our forms. And at the same time, like Samuel Beckett, standing on the stage, directing the production of his play, at the height of his fame, wondering, what the hell am I doing? interestingly in total keeping with the content of the play but that sensibility no we do what we do as its unique expression and contribution to all existence that influence and support our efforts giving each thing the time it needs because here you are doing it doing it like it's the most important thing it's not the here and now

[44:38]

that needs to be pushed aside so you can get to the most important thing. How could that ever be so? Whether it's this exhale, whether it's this task at work, Whether it's walking from a zendo to your cabin. What is it to give birth every moment? What is it to be alive every moment? not as the expression of some great struggle between good and evil, but just in accordance with what is the nature of existence.

[45:51]

What is that diligence of the yogic involvement of body and breath and attention directed and receptive? It's determined but diligent refining our effort like this and the recklessness of oh don't let that thought happen it's already started to happen You don't have to feed it and think about it for the next five minutes, but what's arrived has arrived. Can it be felt, experienced fully?

[47:11]

Can it teach the Dharma? and that sensibility of the body. You know, as we're undone by Sashim, as the world, according to me, starts to loosen up. One of the stories they like to tell in Thailand was, oh, so-and-so, yes, he's lived over there in that cave, you know, for 600 kalpas. And so deep is his meditation, he can shift shape, you know, or shape-shift. But we're always sort of shape-shifted, you know, expansive, contracted, burdened,

[48:19]

Focused on this, open to this. Usually the construct of the self keep it all orderly and proper. And as they loosen up, the fluidity of being pops up. In our sitting, we become nobody. The fixed sense of body falls away. Different sensibilities arise.

[49:30]

Sometimes the pronounced attribute is a kind of energy. Sometimes it's almost a sensorium of physical sensations. Sometimes the spaciousness of hearing or seeing three-dimensionally special. Just being not so contrived by the Self.

[50:38]

To let ourselves walk sit more deeply into interbeing not because we know what it's supposed to create or stop just being alive who's this coming to the ice pit walking tall as if in a procession, bearing in front of her a slender pan, withdrawn just now from underneath the firebox, waiting, full to the brim with white dust and flakes, still sparking hot, that the wind is blowing into her apron bib, into her mouth and eyes, while she proceeds, unwavering, keeping her burden horizontal still.

[51:39]

Hands in a tight sore grip around the metal knob. Proceeds until we've lost sight of her. With the worn path, turns behind the handhouse. Detail, detail, detail. No reason why, no conclusions. ceaseless practice. 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, visit sfcc.org and click giving.

[52:36]

@Transcribed_UNK
@Text_v005
@Score_94.96