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. So one more day of Sashin. And then some strange ceremony involving dragons and elephants. Yeah. And then push open the front gate and the Zen monks with hungry eyes and hands skip over the mountains and dine into the green valleys. And others rush in looking for

[01:03]

traces of the Buddha. And before all that, in the midst of all that, what is this Zen practice? Maybe in the course of the practice period, you discovered something about close attention to breath. Clouds floating through. Clouds of thought floating through. Maybe indeligently following the schedule, you discovered something about letting unruly passions fall away like the leaves off a withered tree.

[02:11]

Maybe through steady observance you saw the conditioned nature of mind, like carving a cave of emptiness out of a mountain of form. worthy endeavors, the virtue of the path of purification. Yangshan says, you've entered the stage of trust, but not yet a real person. This is a point of entry, but not yet real.

[03:24]

What is this? What are they talking about? Real person, not yet real. here endeavor to set aside the preoccupations that bind us to the dusty realms of the world and then we turn around and throw open the gates I've heard Zen teachers say, hold on to nothing. Have no contrivance. Just do the next thing.

[04:27]

And then other teachers say, have a gatha for each activity. Stay close to the single vow of practice. I would ask you, what's the vow underneath the vow? What's the vow underneath the intentionality of Zen practice? What's the formless underneath, in the midst of, on top of, the form that can flow freely from here to there and back. That abides within practice period and moves freely beyond it.

[05:34]

That stays perfectly still whether the gates are open or closed. If all we learn is the intricacies of oreoche, have we learned anything? Have we learned that every meal we eat is its own oreoche? Whether it's a sandwich at McDonald's or in a five-star restaurant, And how is this realized? We could say right in the middle of the form, closer than words or ideas, the formless

[06:57]

Is that what we'll take into the red dust of the world? Can we take it off our cushions? Stand beside our seat? Can we walk with it in kin hin? Can we walk down the Zendo steps and walk up the road or right to the flats? As the thoughts and images of something ending flood in. Do they toss us into chaos?

[07:58]

flights of fancy or do they come here and be seen and felt and heard and tasted still raising the Dharma banner of conditioned existence still falling away the leaves from the withered tree in the diligence of just doing one thing after another this point in the practice period

[09:01]

It's like our practice becomes tantric. We could try to wall off the thoughts, the feelings, the images, the anticipations. Try to stay in the purity of our dedicated effort. But how will we be trained in the chaos of the world if we don't let our own version of it express itself as it does? Does that mean to indulge in it, to sit fantasizing? Does that mean to call forth the things that frighten you and that you dread? Does that mean to yearn after the things that you long for, that you imagine will give you such delicious pleasure?

[10:08]

What is it to let them be both real and unreal? What is it to discover right here another dimension of the nature of mind, another dimension of the nature of personhood. How can we enter the world with the bodhisattva vow, with bliss bestowing hands, if we're not familiar with the personhood of our own being. And what a great tantric teaching, the activity of anticipation. Not to go looking for trouble,

[11:27]

but not to run away either just to sit wide open whether what arises is called fragrant grasses or weeds what makes it one what makes it the other Maybe in our current state it feels like the top of a two-foot pole instead of a hundred-foot pole or a six-inch pole.

[12:36]

I would say don't underestimate your own efforts. Don't sell yourself short. There has been, there is a quickening, a connecting, an opening, a softening. Your body, your breath, your mind, your digestive system have learned something of practice. And as Dogen's energy says, not that it can be held within your conscious thinking, but still.

[13:47]

And now, as that quickening and that energy and that presence come under the magical sway of your personhood, What's the problem with that? Something going wrong? Not to turn it into the great escape. But not to resent or fear. passion of your own life. How else do we enter the passion of our life? How else do we enter the red dust of the world with bliss bestowing hands?

[14:51]

If there isn't intimacy here, can there be intimacy elsewhere? So I would say this is the turning of our practice now. This is the one step off the top of a hundred foot pole. It's to bear witness. It's to trust what has become embodied about practice. Trust what the breath has taught the body about breathing. And what the breath and the body have taught the mind about letting things flow through. And to let that be the host that receives the guest.

[16:08]

The guest that some mysterious alchemy of our personhood invites. Maybe you'll discover you've sent out a hundred invitations and all your guests are turning up. The people that annoy you. Oh, God. Did I invite her? That was a mistake. The yearning. Oh, if only. The dread. I hope that doesn't happen. The language of our shared passion. What makes it fragrant grasses?

[17:21]

What makes it ten foot high weeds that we can't pass through and we can't see over? In the midst of all that, can we discover something about intimacy? Can we discover something about intimacy and clarity? Can we discover something about intimacy, clarity, and intentionality that's adaptable? What's happening now? What is it to practice with it? When a horse is asked for, give a horse. When a poem is asked for, give a poem. So the arisings of your own passion initiate the process.

[18:31]

Delightful, dreadful, frightening, amusing. What did you expect? You were a person. package deal. Real and unreal. Always one step of a hundred foot pole. Does anyone know when they sit across their legs and sit zazen, what's going to happen? Will anyone ever know when they cross their legs and sit zazen, what's going to happen? Does anyone ever sit a period of zazen and not take one step of a hundred foot pole?

[19:42]

Leave the gates closed, one step of a hundred foot pole. Open them wide, one step of a hundred foot pole. Dreaded, still, there it is. Can't wait for it. It arrives when it arrives. This is the alchemy that takes the forms and lets them become any form. This is the alchemy that takes the forms and reveals the formless that flows into everything. Maybe we could say,

[20:54]

we sit still with diligence and discipline and we discover something trustable. We discover the very nature of trusting what is. And of course, that happens within a particular form. As I was saying, maybe you tasted it in close attention to breath. Maybe you tasted it in the soothing presence of the unruly passions having quieted. Just watching yourself when the bell rings, go to the zindo. And when it rings again, stand up and do service. Nothing special.

[21:55]

Learning to trust that life doesn't need to be accompanied by an exaggerated commentary or judgment. But what about exaggerated commentary? What about judgment? Yours and others. Especially others. I mean, mine are actually very wise. But those others, I've done my best, but they just don't seem to get it. So this tantric practice of playing with the passion, So be it.

[23:07]

And if you find yourself fantasizing that you're on a beach in Hawaii, come back to basics. It doesn't change. The basics are always the basics. That's why they're called the basics. Your body, breath, presence in the moment, contacting what is now. Can that arising yearning, fantasy for yearning, fed by yearning, can it be experienced as energy, as passion? Neither real nor unreal what is it to take the fruits of three months and let them infuse personhood and what is it to let that person who would meet each person not to simply make them

[24:36]

character in the play of your own psychological theater, but to let them be a real person with as much entitlement and authenticity in their personhood as you offer yourself. To discover intimacy. To discover giver, receiver, and gift. To discover what it is to give everything and then give some more. And receive everything and then receive some more. This is the alchemy of bliss bestowing hands. It's not the stuff of sitting alone on Vulture Peak.

[25:41]

It's the stuff of going down into the valley. to grant ourselves permission. For maybe what we spent three months curtailing, silencing, holding still, to allow bondless expression. not an invitation to self-indulgence either of the dreadful or the delightful but a way of discovering exactly how the formless essence of practice can flow into any form not to have that

[27:08]

as some cute saying we write in our notebooks. It's something we actualize through living, through practicing, that we realize through experiencing. What is it to let the self become self-employing and self-enjoying samadhi? Not that we've finished the work of meeting the self. That's never finished. Not to say you've tidied up all the dark corners of your psychology. You've untied the knots in your own thinking.

[28:18]

If we wait for that, we'll never take the step. When I was a child, we had a game, and at a certain point you said, ready or not, here I come. It's like that. Ready or not, take a step. How do you get ready? Take a step. And if you fall down, get back up. If you wander wildly into distractions, come back. Where were you? What was so interesting about that? And something in the process, the quickening of sprint,

[29:27]

Something in the process, the sap rises and the tree buds. Like the Buddha. And blossoms. And the bees swarm around. How did they know to do that? They hadn't marked it on their calendar. Something in our being, our individual being, our collective being, yearns for this, knows this, and lives on it. Maybe we're afraid of the energy of our own personhood, that it will be too disruptive.

[31:01]

that if we don't comply and conform we will be unforgiving but maybe that's an inner process that we discover how to relate to Maybe that will support us in relating to others. So one day, the elephant dragon ceremony,

[32:18]

And then the Dharma gates flow open. But why wait? Why not right here, right now, with the next breath? With the next period of Zazen? How could something as contrived as the end of Shashin be of any great significance. Is our life going to be radically different? Are we going to have four arms instead of two? Is our heart just not going to keep on beating? The workings of our conditioned life keep on unfolding? In Zen they talk of timeless spring as a way to talk about the full activity of practice.

[33:59]

How come Changsa and Yangshan talk about but not yet a real person. This is the phase of trust, but not yet a real person. And how does that happen? Take one step off a 100-foot pole. the next inhale be completely itself not just the product of some preoccupation let the nature of your effort flow

[35:11]

not just held sway by some agenda or hesitancy. This great con of being alive. Nazim Hikmet was a communist in Turkey where they didn't want any communists. So he was constantly in trouble. At one point he was arrested and he was being shipped from one place to another. And they made him stand in the effluent of the latrine, the shit and the piss of the latrine. And somewhere between waist deep and chest deep. And every time they opened the door to check on him, he would sing at the top of his voice.

[36:16]

One of his poems, he says, talks about being in prison and looking out the window and looking at the mulberry trees. my eyes so hungry. The point is not about being in prison. The point is about living. So now, with the support everything we've offered each other with the support of the grand heritage of Soto Zen in this style of Dogen Zenji brought to America by Shunrei Suzuki Dao Sho with the support of your own dedication and diligence and perseverance

[37:42]

Now this, like some great finale in a piece of theater, as it reaches a climax, what will happen? Finally, the question of all questions, Who are you? And you get to live the answer. And what is the world you live in? And you get to see how you pluck it forward from the future. Pluck it here from the future. It may be. to glean from that something about entering the world with bliss-bestowing hands.

[38:53]

Or maybe, more modestly, causing less trouble and maybe doing a little more good. And it starts here. gift of the Buddha way. For more information, visit sfcc.org and click giving.

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