Good morning. A few moments ago, as I was sitting down, I had a thought of how that felt and how it felt six days ago, first day of Sasheen. And then it felt, six days ago, it felt kind of ominous. And the idea my mind came up with was coming into the zendo with all these dignified monks sitting in samadhi and taking the dormit seat. It felt like Sheen owns me, you know, and here I am.

[01:10]

It's like, wait a minute. And then this morning, it's like, yeah, this is how life is. This is how the world is. This is how it works. The world owns us. sun shines and happiness blossoms the weather changes something in us changes sometimes it's very personal then sometimes it seems like it's collective Sometimes we think, I've heard this machine only goes for seven days.

[02:17]

I've heard that rumor. And if it's true, that means some glorious day I'll get to be myself again. Fantastic. But we draw it up as an involvement of our conscious, rational, intellectual mind. It's like a cosmic joke. But in the workings of our being, it has a lot of authority. And then there's a way in which we love being part of the world.

[03:22]

We love the intimacy of our collective being. We're relieved to no longer be ensnared by the relentless preoccupations that come up in the self. And then we go back, counting the days until it's over. So you'll be maybe a little surprised and probably a lot relieved that I'm not going to keep cross-referencing Dogen's energy for Kanzha Zenki's. rather bring up a teaching, somewhat from the Satipatthana Sutta and somewhat from a broader scope of the early suttas, where there's four qualities.

[04:37]

I've mentioned them yesterday and actually a little before that too. Four qualities of mindfulness. and as we engage them. I think it's an interesting process because there again, as I was saying yesterday, we can think, oh, well, here's ordinary mind and here's our glimpses of samadhi or giving over and how they can hold the same experience in a different way. And so these qualities of mindfulness, they can be related to in different ways. The first one is diligence.

[05:44]

It's connected to the word virya. maybe in its essential meaning or its primary meaning would be energy. But it comes to mean in the early suttas because of the different ways you can see it being used. It goes from diligence, persistence, engagement, energy. And in some ways, that runs through many aspects of our practice. The purposefulness, the resolve, the vow to initiate interaction.

[06:48]

Whether it's with the breath, or whether it's with chanting, or whether it's with walking in the sunlight. And how as we give over to it, it owns us. And when we give over to it, it supports us to let something drop away. And usually that something is an internal preoccupation with some aspect of the self. Not to say that some aspect of the self and how it can preoccupy us is outside the realm of the Dharma.

[08:00]

It's not. I think it's useful to say to yourself on occasions, the way I'm doing it is exactly the way it's proposed in all the marvelous suttas and sutras and fascicles of Dogen. This is what he's talking about, exactly what I'm doing. trust in something in yourself. Because if we set up a dichotomy, it creates its own complications. It's hard for us not to settle the dichotomy.

[09:05]

There's an old Irish myth about St. Kevin. In early Irish Catholicism, before it became associated with Roman Catholicism, the ethos seemed pretty simple. Jesus Christ transformed through intense suffering. So if you want to transform, guess what? Just go out there and get yourself some intense suffering. And so they practiced many austerities. And this was how the the primary mode of transformation. In the early Middle Ages, there was a plague in Europe which didn't make it over to Ireland, but it devastated, among other things, the monastic system in Europe.

[10:23]

And then after the plague, the Irish monks went over to Europe to kind of help rebuild the system, monastic system. And they brought this fervor about austerity. And there is on record where one of the abbots of a monastery in France wrote to the pope to complain about these weird extremists from Ireland. strange ways. Anyway, Seamus Heaney did us the favor of writing a lovely poem about St. Kevin. You'll see the story pretty quickly. And then there was St.

[11:28]

Kevin and the blackbird. The saint is kneeling. arms outstretched inside his cell but the cell is narrow so one upturned palm is out the window stiff as a cross beam one of the practices they had was they would sit for very long periods of time with their arms like stretched which I've never done but I've heard after an hour or so, it's not so comfortable. So apparently, St. Kevin was taking up that practice. One upturned palm right the window, stiff as a crossbeam, when a blackbird lands and lays in it and settles dying to nest.

[12:31]

Kevin feels the warm eggs, the small breast, the tucked neat head, and the claws, and finding himself linked into the network of eternal life. He's moved to pity. Now he must hold his hand like a branch out in the sun and the rain for weeks until the young are hatched and fledged and flawed. And since the whole thing's imagined, anyhow, imagine being Kevin. Which is he? Self-forgetful or in agony all the time? From the neck on down through his hurting forearms. Are his fingers sleeping?

[13:35]

Does he still feel his knees? Or has the shut-eyed blank of under earth crept up through him? Is there distance in his head, alone and mirrored clear in love's deep river? To labor and to not seek reward, he prays. A prayer his body makes entirely. For he has forgotten self, forgotten bird, and on the river bank, forgotten the river. that interplay going on inside every one of us.

[14:49]

The assertions of your mind and emotions. And of your knees and your back and your shoulders and your neck. And what are the parts of your anatomy that have something to say to you? Especially when you hold your arms out the window or cross your legs and sit up straight. What if instead of thinking of them as opposites, There's the beautiful diligence that I aspire to and sometimes manifest.

[15:50]

And then there's the tawdry, deluded workings of the self. What if we didn't know what was exalted and what was profane? And we just thought, these two intertwined. Through the tension, feeling the tension in our shoulders, we learned something about letting the shoulders relax. Through feeling the discomfort in the body, We'll learn something about how to uphold life, how to continue a life, even when the circumstances under which we're doing it are not exactly the ones we'd like, or maybe not even close to the ones we'd like to be doing it under.

[17:03]

does our diligence arise? In Alio, in his version, he gives a wonderful straightforward notion. It arises out of our vow, our purposefulness. I'd offer you a more complicated suggestion. And I think many of us discover it in Sashim. Our engagement is almost despite ourselves.

[18:20]

Our engagement is stimulated by our assumptions. presumptions of normal being challenged. Maybe he put his arms out and said, I'll do this for 10 minutes, and then I'll go and have my dinner. And then there he was, stuck with doing it for two months. That way each of us is in negotiation with practice.

[19:36]

And then something reminds us. It's not a negotiation. What is, is. whole universe is contributing to this moment being exactly what it is. You can like it, you can dislike it, you can think about it as wonderful, you can think about it as terrible, you can resent it. It is what it is. It's something in us literally takes it to heart. I know that, but I guess I needed to be reminded. It's something in that remembering.

[20:50]

the root of the word sati, mindfulness. Something in that remembering re-initiates the diligence. Could that happen if everything just went according to plan? if everything just flowed for you. I suspect everybody in this room, if they rummaged around in their own experience, could say, you know, that happened and I learned a lot from it. And I hope it doesn't happen again.

[21:52]

I'd suggest to you that our diligence arises not exactly in relationship to our willingness to suffer, but there's a way in which it's asked... Existence is asking something of us and we're giving it. No. You come into Sashin, it asks a lot of you. And maybe initially... It stirs up your resolve.

[23:08]

And maybe there's a little intimidation or feeling of some ominous foreboding. Maybe there's some voice within you negotiating. How can I... this danger at bay maybe you brought some chocolate many years ago when I was a student here I sat naturally enough beside another student and She never ate much in the Zendo. And one day I said to her outside the Zendo, I said, you never seem to eat much.

[24:18]

How do you survive? And she said, chocolate. I could never survive without chocolate. And then something, Shashin demands something of us and we give over to that demand and we start to discover it's not a one-way thing. You give and you receive. if you hold your arm out until the bird lays its eggs and hatches its young, I think you learn a lot about birds.

[25:36]

So diligence, this curious quality that flows through us all, You know? Sometimes, in the most misguided way, humans direct their diligence towards destruction, violence, all sorts of things. And sometimes in the most amazing way. I go to Calcutta to set up a clinic to take care of lepers. They join the Peace Corps. They go to Zen Monasteries. Now that one's really hard to figure out. So I would suggest to you all the workings of you contribute to your diligence.

[27:05]

And it's a wonderful game to play with yourself because then that human impulse to not acknowledge, deny, compartmentalize, suppress. We loosen it up. This contributes to my practice. This contributes to cultivation of diligence. Oh, what is it? same practice period that someone revealed the secret of chocolate for them. My next-door neighbor, he would order chocolate in one-pound slabs, and he'd get about six of them, you know, on the personal time trip.

[28:17]

And he'd eat every darn one of them. He was a marvelously devoted practitioner. As is the canyon rat. And in a way, this relationship to diligence, it sets the stage for what's the second quality. And the second quality is called clearly noting, clearly noticing, clearly knowing. In mediation, the type of mediation I was taught to lead was there's two people

[29:27]

This person speaks, this person tells them what they just said, then the other person speaks, and the first person tells them what they just said. And that's how you resolve their differences. And if all goes well, as the mediator, you sit there and do nothing. Sometimes you have to delicately, without causing a disturbance, say, did they repeat that correctly? And the person says, no. Could you tell them again? Because you can't repeat it correctly if you're busy working out your rebuttal. If you're busy thinking, I have a story to tell, and I'm getting it ready, as soon as you go quiet, I've got it.

[30:43]

Something within us, having this experience of being alive all the time, all these different experiences, Are we just busy working on our rebuttal? Or can we hear and see? There's a poem that I couldn't find. It's by Jared Manley Hopkins, and he says, And now the eyes of my eyes can see, and the ears of my ears can hear. On the level of senses, how do we let what's being seen register?

[32:01]

How do we let what's being heard register? Smelled, felt, tasted. On the level of emotion, how do we let the emotion be felt? Rather than initiate its own rebuttal or its own yearning for more. With our reasonableness we could say, well, we could say that. Or maybe with our heart we say that.

[33:05]

We could say, well, silence. that which wants to express no but that wants to challenge rather than receive that something in us is too preoccupied to let now be now, to let the constituents of now be now. This kind of involvement. So, rationally, that makes a lot of sense, at least it does to mine. But I would say to you, emotionally,

[34:15]

the other word I would use would be existentially, the way in which something within us wants to be nourished, something within us wants to be acknowledged, something within us wants to be enlivened. How do we attune to that? So often when you're doing mediation, you can watch this tender balance. These two folks have come to mediation because what's going on between them doesn't feel good. They're bringing a discontent to this engagement.

[35:22]

And in the middle of that discontent, They're being asked to receive what the other person has to say. And when they speak their truth, their discontent will shape what they have to say. So this way of engaging And when they reconcile, what they have received will facilitate the resolution of their discontent. So it occurs to my mind that clearly seeing asks of us a certain kind of diligence, but it also asks of us a certain kind of engagement where we're literally willing to receive.

[36:45]

So when we're letting the ears of our ear hear, it's not just some dry or it's not just some determined challenge that we coach ourselves on how to bring a willingness to it. Starting with the body, starting with the senses, it's usually for us an easier territory to explore than the complications of our emotions and our different sense of self, different kinds of sense of self.

[37:53]

But to bring a willingness to hear them and see them too. Insight is a very interesting thing. Often when we have an insight, especially around ourselves, some aspect of ourself, often we have some of the details of how we are. It's almost like it comes with a certain kind of wonder. How did it take so long for me to see that? Now I see it. It seems kind of obvious. Well, now you're willing to see it. So clearly seeing. And then the two of these.

[39:09]

And I think you can see how clearly seeing... And then, of course, as the mind and the heart settle, as something in us becomes willing to open, this process can just flow. Thank goodness it's not... always, for us, something we're reluctant towards. I think of coming out and just before we start walking Kingin, and the monks lined up like butterflies soaking up the sun. Sometimes when it's been a little bit cold, and butterflies just spread out their solar collectors and soak it up.

[40:18]

That too. And to remind ourselves that that reminds us Receiving what is sometimes is a lot of fun. Sometimes it's a nourishment. It's happiness. It's revitalizing. Sometimes diligence brings its own kind of delight. There's a relief for us when we set aside the limitations we impose upon ourselves and others. And sometimes they both usher us into the moment

[41:38]

It's so appealing we forget that on other occasions we've resisted. Standing there in the sunlight feeling the sun's warmth doesn't feel like any great Zen practice just feels like, well, what else would you do when it feels so delicious? So you remember that too. And then they come together and they stimulate awareness. Awareness ripens. As I mentioned yesterday, Enaglio, his translation of the last factor, the last quality, is freedom from desires and sadness.

[42:58]

But no doubt, I'll get back to that. But I will end by letting you hear again what Seamus Heaney had to say. about St. Kevin and the Blackbird. And then there was St. Kevin and the Blackbird. The saint is kneeling, arms stretched out inside his cell, but the cell is narrow, so one upturned palm is out the window, still as a crossbeam, when a blackbird lands and lays in it and settles down to rest. Kevin feels the warm eggs, the small breast, the tucked neat head, and the claws. And finding himself linked into the network of eternal life is moved to pity. Now he must hold his hand like a branch out in the sun and rain for weeks until the young are hatched and fledged and flown.

[44:06]

And since the whole thing's imagined anyhow, Imagine being Kevin. Which is he? Self-forgetful or in agony all the time? From the neck on, down through his hurting forearms? Are his fingers sleeping? Does he still feel his knees? Or has the shut-eyed blank of underneath crept up through him? Is there distance in his head, alone and mirrored clear in love's deep river? To labor and not seek reward, he prays. A prayer his body makes entirely. For he has forgotten self, forgotten bird, and on the river bank, forgotten the river. Thank you.

[45:11]

@Transcribed_UNK
@Text_v005
@Score_96.82