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. A man approached Zen Master E.Q. and asked him, please... write, do some calligraphy for me, some wonderful words of wisdom, maxims of wisdom for me. And so Ikkyu took out the brush and the paper and he wrote the character for attention. And the man took a look at it and said, is that all? So Ikkyu took another piece of paper and he wrote, attention, attention.

[01:00]

And the person said, well, I don't see so much depth and wisdom in what you wrote. And EQ wrote, attention, attention, attention. And then the man, kind of sort of partially angered, partially confused, said, well, what does attention mean? And Ikkyu said, attention means attention. So what does it mean to practice attention, to pay? We say, pay attention. This is an interesting phrase. What do we pay with? Why do we have to pay attention? So one might say these words of wisdom of Ikkyo.

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Ikkyo, by the way, was a very kind of a wild guy, frequented wherever and with whomever. He lived in the 1300s and 1400s. Poet and artist and calligrapher and all-round Zen character. And his words of wisdom, attention, attention. So how do we pay attention? How do we find the practice of attention and attention to what. This morning on the way to, in the morning I offer incense at different altars, ending up here at the main altar before walking around the Zento in a

[03:14]

morning greeting, and this morning on the way from, let's see, from the kitchen into Cloud Hall to go to the Cloud Hall altar, I fell down. And I don't know if anybody heard the sound that I made. And it was one of those shocking, you know, all of a sudden I found myself on the ground in the mud, and, you know, my hands got all scraped up and My poor Jisha didn't know what to do, hauling me up and brushing me off. And, you know, I thought, well, this is a really good thing to look at. Where was I that I fell down right in front of the Han? And I've fallen there before. I fell there last year about this time. Oh. And Matisha at that time sort of went, you know, this is the one, this is the third time I've fallen when doing this morning jundo of going to the altars.

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And the time before, last year, what I was doing at the time was I took out my hanky and I was blowing my nose or wiping my nose. And there's a little step there, kind of the final little step before you're on the level with going into God Hall. And I just missed it. It was like blocking my view. So I thought, oh, there's that step again. That's helping me. This teacher, this step teacher, teaching me to pay attention. What I was doing this morning was my eye was drawn to a window in the second floor that had a light on. And I was thinking... Who is up there with the light on? They should be in the Zento. Isn't it time for Zasen? I wonder what they're doing. Maybe they're sick. I mean, I had gone off and crashed, you know. It was really... So I had this swollen knee and I put Arnica on and, you know, very good teaching for what Ikkyu's talking about.

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attention, attention, attention. And, you know, sometimes these can be life-threatening, you know, a kind of momentary distraction or, you know, fiddling with the radio and then like, whoa, over the yellow line or in the car or any of a number of things, numberless things. But this morning it was just right. Came a stumble-bum being, stumble-bum into the Zen Dauda offering sense and sit. So in our daily life and in our sesheen life, paying attention or practicing attention You know, it kind of doesn't get more basic than that.

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And what is it that we're paying attention to? We can choose something in particular. And often that's very helpful to start with what we've already, that's already here, that's presenting itself, that's already arising without doing anything extra. It's already there, which is posture. This is for not just Sashin, not just Sazen in the Zendo, but how we move through space, how we live our life, taking a posture that supports attention and our breath. So someone reminded me recently about seeing little babies, little ones, who are just sitting up, and they sit up, those of you who, you know, you can picture baby, with their backs completely straight, their little leggers just straight out, and just like plunk to play, and they pay careful attention.

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They're very attentive. It's just the world is just... attention to all the different myriad wonders. And that back straight with ease, relax, is not tense and rigid. It's the vertebrae are stacked up and it's strong and comfortable and relaxed. That's a kind of image of of babies, little babies, and all the way, you know, at what point, I don't know, when slouching comes in or, but we, you know, start out with this very natural and relaxed posture. My eyes are watering, I'm not.

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crying about this, although I could. So as we're sitting, we may want, we may have the intention to pay attention, to bring ourselves completely here to our posture and our breath and everything else that's happening in Sashin, for serving or washing dishes, walking to and fro, listening to the sounds. And what we may find is we get pulled off. We get drawn to something. We get, we could say, distracted. But distracted has a kind of negative connotation. something will draw us. We get caught thinking about something or worrying about something or leaping into the future or going over something from the past or whatever is coming up, getting caught with whatever's coming up and going deeply into that in a kind of elaborating way.

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So our effort to pay attention to this very moment, whatever it brings, and if we can let go of the idea that we're supposed to be a certain way, we're supposed to be, I don't know, calm and joyful and happy and, I don't know, any of a number of descriptions that we give ourselves, perfect, you know, a perfect one, or not perfect, whatever we may be carrying how we're supposed to be, if we can loosen that and come back to, it's just enough to pay attention. It's just enough to bring attention to whatever's going on without adding anything extra of, how it's supposed to be, or how we're supposed to be.

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Even the attentive one. So we were talking in the tea with the practice period about sleepiness and drowsiness and when that happens. And whatever happens is a chance to bring our attention there. So if we get sleepy, what's going on for us? This is a chance to look at that. This is a chance to discover something, to discover something anew. And same with, in our zazen practice, noticing our mind wandering or being distracted. What is worrying us? What is it that's on our mind or on our hearts? So to be so-called distracted or pulled off is also our life is showing us, bringing us something that we need to pay attention to.

[12:46]

Paying attention to what it is that pulls us, worries us, concerns us, scares us. brings up harsh language against ourselves or another. So Carl Jung, the psychiatrist, says, there are no detours or wrong turnings. There are no detours or wrong turnings. What looks like a detour, oh, I'm supposed to be going here, but I'm going off over here. There is all the whatever has brought you to make that turn is worthy of attention. It's not necessarily a wrong turning or some detour from your life. That is life. And that's something to pay attention to. So we may have a very strong understanding or belief, I would say,

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that we're not supposed to be thinking or we're not supposed to be who we are. We're not supposed to be like that. We're not supposed to have a mind that wanders or that we think about something. And if we do think about something or are drawn to something, then that's not good. We may have a very, and that's, you know, we criticize ourself for that. I think this is a very important point to, if we can turn this, it's almost like Suzuki Roshi often says, this is the most important point, to turn that spot from self-criticism, I'm a terrible Zen student, I don't know how to do this, I hate this, everybody else knows, everybody else is doing it perfectly, or whatever that frame is. thinking is, to turn that to curiosity, what is this?

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And pay attention to that. There's always something that we can be attentive to. And in that practice where whatever comes up, even what's called so-called being pulled off, teach us that is a teacher. That's not distraction, that's Buddha Dharma. All things are Buddha Dharma. So it's a kind of waste of time, I think, to be chastising ourselves for not being some idea that we have of how it's supposed to be. The practice and precepts is to allow us to be completely ourselves, whatever that is, and to have a freedom and spaciousness within that.

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And noticing that we do come back, whatever it is that we're worried about or that's distracted us, so-called, we notice and come back to posture, breath, with a relaxed mind. The image of the wind, I think because our sesheen started out with this storm and the wind has been coming up for me. And in this morning preparing, I thought about this freedom to be ourselves, completely be ourselves with whatever comes up. And then the thought of the eight winds came up, being blown around by the eight winds.

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This image of the eight winds being a leaf in the wind, that whatever the winds are, we have no stability, no steadiness, no freedom. Actually, we're just taken by the wind. And the eight winds are pleasure and pain. Profit and loss. Praise and blame and good reputation, bad reputation. These are the eight wins. So to feel ourselves being blown up when there's praise, and then blown down, blame and anger.

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around that, and oh, profiting, oh how wonderful, loss, up, down, pleasure, pain, and good reputation, bad reputation, you know, acting in such a way that people will like us, where our life is pushed around by this idea of I want to do something that people will like. where they'll approve of me and like me. I want this. I want to have a, be thought of, you know, have a good reputation, a bad reputation is the worst. I'll do anything to not have. This is, this is a life that's just, there's no, no rest. There's no rest. Just because each moment there's, in each moment of our existence, there's, unpleasant or pleasant or neutral.

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We can't stop. We can't just make pleasant or pleasure and pain. We can't just avoid pain. There will be pain in this human life. There is old age, sickness, and death. We can't escape. So if we're trying to run and escape or create pleasurable pleasures, all the time. Where's our life? We'll lose our life. So the winds, these winds, I think we choose to practice in a sesheen or come to a practice period come to a practice center because we're tired of being blown around by the eight winds.

[20:31]

I would guess. I know I'm tired. And we get battered, you know, in the winds. So the ways in which we lose whatever it is we're paying attention to this very moment, the present, whatever concerns or fears or thoughts from the past, unfinished business, unexamined relationships, whatever it is that comes up, these are the places where we suffer. This is one way to find the truth of suffering, the first noble truth. Sometimes people say, I don't really, what do you mean the truth of suffering, which is sometimes mistranslated as every life is suffering.

[21:41]

To turn that to the truth of suffering, I'm not sure what you mean by that, you know, someone might say. So these are the points that we can find where it is that we suffer from. I recently saw the movie Lincoln, and just to recommend this movie, it was actually a life-changing, I don't say this too often, but the way art and literature can be, it turned me around. What he faced as the president and the leader of the country at this very, very terrible time of suffering and how upright he was and compassionate and not rigid, flexible to see through what he felt he needed to see through.

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He used whatever tools he could. And one might say, well, he wasn't observing precepts the way he got the votes that he needed for the 13th Amendment. abolishing slavery. He did what someone might say, wheeler-dealer or finessing. But for me, it was the overarching, compassionate, the precept of compassion was roaring like thunder. And he did what he could and spoke so plainly. And it really inspired me to to speak as plainly as I can, to speak honestly without worrying about the eight wins, you know. Good reputation, bad reputation, praise and blame, these kinds of things may stop us from speaking from the heart, from speaking truly, expressing ourselves fully,

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or not wanting to feel pain. I think the eight winds, if we study the eight winds, we can see all the ways in which we are thrown around. I can see all the ways in which I can be thrown around. So it did inspire me, and I had a difficult conversation. I had to... participate in, and I, you know, this has never happened to me before, but I brought Abe Lincoln to mind, you know, as a kind of, I don't know, kind of a teacher, really, a bodhisattva teacher of full expression and skill and skillful means put together and staying close, close to my heart. And I came up this Zen story about Abraham Lincoln that I wanted to share with you.

[25:06]

Abraham Lincoln was once, he asked one of his secretaries this kind of little riddle. If you called, maybe you know this, if you call a tail a leg, how many legs does a horse have? If you called a tail a leg, how many legs does a horse have? And the secretary said, five. And Abraham Lincoln said, the answer is four. Calling a tail a leg does not make it a leg. I thought that was a great Zen story, you know. Now what does that have to do with our Sashim practice? When I fell this morning, I thought of the talk that we had a couple Sundays ago.

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You get up from the ground you fall down on, and you also get up in emptiness or from emptiness. Whatever the ground is you fall on, you use that to get up. What else can you use? You can't be magically plucked up into the air You use the ground that you fall on. You use the ground of your life to get up when you fall. And that very ground of your life is emptiness. You get up from emptiness. And as I was getting up, not quite while I was getting up, a little after I thought, you get up from emptiness. Because without the truth of emptiness, I couldn't have gotten up. emptiness, the codependently arising, non-abiding self.

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If there was a substantial self, meaning not dependent on anything, but all by itself, how could it, well, first of all, how could it have fallen, but how could it get up? It needs all these things that you need to that are dependent, depending on this, depending on that. You use all that to get up. Otherwise, everything is stuck, which is unimaginable. We can't even conceive of a life that's not empty. Everything is brought to us, sponsored by codependently arising moment after moment. So we use the ground. We use exactly the conventional life of ground and muscle and hands to get up and jishas to help you get up.

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You use all that. And it's all, you know, thanks to emptiness, you know, that all is flowing and possible. Emptiness is not nothingness. Emptiness is complete, interrelated, flowing, inconceivability of life, of our existence together. So this practice of attention, attention to our posture, You know, imagine we were once all babies, you know. And, you know, to sit with our back supported, and if you're on a chair, you know, to try not to lean against the back of the chair.

[29:20]

You could have maybe something, a little cushion in your lower back for a little, you know, support there. It's hard to sit in a chair. You'd have to... Use your muscles in a way that you don't when you're on cross-legged or on a SESA bench or sitting SESA. So those of you in a chair, you know, you might need a little support, but try not to lean back on the chair, which will help develop those muscles, for one thing, and also give the sensation of... uprightness, sitting on our own, just in our own spot without leaning forward or backward or side to side. And those of us on cushions, to have enough support, and during the sashin, you might need a different size cushion. You start out with one, you may need to change.

[30:21]

So be attentive to this, attentive that you need a little height or a little, you need to take something away. It's too high. So your bottom is a little higher. There's an angle from your bottom down to your knees. The hip to knee ratio. The knees should be lower. You all know this. And sometimes a lot of height helps get the knees down. So sometimes you read in Suzuki Roshi Hills in one part about following the breath or counting the breath and sitting, watching the breath. He says, after 10 minutes or so, you'll calm down. And this is in Zen by Beginner's Mind. And, you know, your breath will be more and more subtle.

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This may, I just want to let you know, this may or may not be so, you know. If you think, it's 10 minutes, it's been 10 minutes, why aren't I calming down? I was promised, you know. This may be a thought that gets you riled up, you know. So whether you're calm and joyful or not is not the main point here. The main point is not to become other than who you are. And it may just be that you are agitated. Can we pay attention to what it is to feel agitated? What does that feel like in the body? What is the breath like when we're agitated or frightened or running away, on our cushion running away? What's happening in the body?

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Can we pay attention to that instead of the thought, I shouldn't be like this. I should be some other way. How am I going to get to that other way? So allowing ourselves to be who we are. And there's a freedom there. This is, I think, also giving your sheep or cow a spacious meadow to allowing agitation. but there's also paying attention to it, not ignoring it. What is agitation in the body? What is restlessness in the body? And what is calm and joy and peace? But that's not the goal here. One might think, well, isn't that the goal? Isn't that why I'm here? If we make that the goal, then any other moment of your life that isn't that, one might feel, I'm doing something wrong, or I'm not okay, or what's the matter with me?

[33:37]

And I think that puts us in a spin, actually. That's like the eight winds just... So while we're paying attention to our posture, one point I wanted to mention is the head. There's many suggestions for the placement of the head, many ways of saying this, but one is the chin is dropped down rather than lifted up. This is really important because with the chin up, there's a tendency to manufacture more thinking. And one thing that I found very useful is to think of right behind the skull, at the base of the skull, really the top vertebrae, if you imagine there's an eye there.

[34:40]

There's one eye in the back, right at the base where the skull ends. And if you imagine you want to keep that eye open, that is a wonderful image for the head to be placed. Rather than if you're lifting your chin, that eye closes up. So you want that eye at the back to be open. This is the top vertebrae. Open the top vertebrae. Other ways are ears in line with shoulders. This part being the top part rather than this part of your head. And lifting up the head. Opening that So this is a way to balance the head. If the head is too far forward, the whole entire body struggles with and has to hold the body with rigidity.

[35:45]

It's hard to relax if you're using muscles to hold yourself. So to find this posture that supports attention, towards the practice of attention, attention, attention. And our breath, as we know, our breath kind of mediates between body-mind. The breath is very connected with the emotions, very connected with states of mind. We know this from what happens when we're afraid, comprehensive, you know, it's hard to breathe. So being very attentive to the breath. And as I was saying yesterday when I was mentioning watching the fire when I was little, or also watching ocean waves, the kind of absorption with being able to stay with something that's slightly moving.

[36:54]

This is, I think... our human ability to pay attention when there's slight rhythmic moving. So we can pay attention to our breath, but starting with our posture, which will support any practice. The first case of the Book of Serenity is very simple. One day, the world-honored one took the Dharma seat.

[38:01]

Manjushri hit the gavel, some kind of gavel, and said, clearly observe the Dharma of the Dharma king. The Dharma of the Dharma king is thus. And then the world honored one got down from his seat. That's the end of the koan. That's the koan. One day the world honored one ascended the seat getting ready to do a Dharma talk That's the reason for ascending the seat. And Manjushri, the bodhisattva of wisdom who sits in Zendo right here, life-size Manjushri we have. Manjushri, hit the gavel, getting everybody's attention.

[39:03]

Attention, attention, everybody. Clearly observe. The Dharma of the Dharma king is thus. clearly observed the Dharma of the Dharma king. The Dharma of the Dharma king is thus. And the World Honored One got down from his seat. The World Honored One, the Buddha, Shakyamuni Buddha, spoke and taught for 40 years or more and sometimes he taught with words and sometimes he taught with noble silence and sometimes he taught just eating and walking and taking a rest and whatever the activities are, whatever the daily activities, sometimes with words, sometimes without words,

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The Dharma of the Dharma king, the truth, the reality, teaching of the world-honored one is thus, is thus. Pay attention, clearly observe, is thus. For each of us, for each of us, the Dharma of the Dharma king, the Dharma king, of the Dharma queen. The Dharma of the Dharma kings and queens is thus, thus. And the poem for this Gohan says, the unique breeze of reality. Do you see it? breeze of reality do you see it endlessly the creatress runs her loom and shuttle incorporating the forms of spring but nothing can be done about Manjushri's leaking

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So this unique breeze of reality is not one of the eight winds. The unique breeze of reality is thus, and is thus, is thus, right at this very moment. The unique breeze of reality. Endlessly weaving the ancient brocade, incorporating the forms of winter, incorporating the forms of fall and spring, incorporating the forms of sashim, the unique breeze of reality. Clearly observe. Now this is... EQ's admonition, EQ's word of wisdom.

[42:55]

This is Manjushri's word of wisdom. These are the words of all the teachers. Clearly observe. Attention. And we all have this capacity. It's not reserved for... Buddhas and ancestors of old. Buddhas and ancestors of old were as we. We just chanted that. And please let's not forget that whatever seems to be pulling us away from thus is thus. Worthy of attention. Worthy of our honor. Thank you very much. Please help us to continue to realize and actualize the practice of giving by offering your financial support.

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For more information, visit sfcc.org and click Giving. May we fully enjoy the Dharma.

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