This podcast is offered by the San Francisco Zen Center on the web at www.sfcc.org. Our public programs are made possible by donations from people like you. Good morning. While I unpack my notes, I invite you to actually feel into your body And see if you can sense where it is relaxed, maybe parts where it is braced, because this is a pretty crowded room. So you might not have gotten the seat that you would have preferred. You might feel encroached upon by the bodies around you or by a particular body in your back, not the... Not necessarily that particular person, but the body in your back.

[01:04]

So pay a little bit attention and then allow your body to move, to make itself comfortable, supported in this situation. But it's really helpful to pay attention of what's going on in it and not just override it because it's inevitable. So take a little bit of time and then start looking around and maybe say hello to your neighbors and look at who is actually that body behind me. And does it change when I look at them? Does it get worse or better? So first I would like to introduce myself.

[02:11]

I have just moved back in after many, many years again into the building for the next 10 weeks because I'm leading the practice period. We just started three days ago or four days ago here with the title Awake Body, Awake Mind. embodying the Buddha way. So my body is in the process of being old and new. A lot of body memories are just there, how to move, how to do things. And then, of course, they've changed them. So then I have to learn new ways. Because this non-changing practice keeps changing like everything else in life. And sleeping in a different bed and being in a different situation.

[03:15]

All the people that moved in from somewhere to do this practice period are going through the same thing. And I think most of us at this point start thinking, why did I ever decide to do this? What was I thinking? How can I get out of this? I think my other life at home would be much better than this, stuff like that. And that's just one way we think that we can escape anything and everything. And part of this teaching is actually that there's no escape. No escape from the moment we're in. respond to the moment, we can influence the moment, but it's here. So the tanto, where is she? Mary came down and smiled at me very smoothly while I was going to my room to get dressed, and I said, are you having fun?

[04:23]

And she said, do you need anything? LAUGHTER And my answer would have been, yes, a different body and a different mind, please, right now. I said, I'm fine, thank you very much. Because I am fine and I would like a different body and a different mind and many other things differently than just now. But sitting here and seeing all of you, actually I don't want to be anywhere else but here. It's really quite an amazing thing what projection does, thinking ahead, and what the reality is of all your bodies here right now. Create a now that I couldn't imagine and that actually none of us could imagine.

[05:27]

So we are in the process of trying to create a body, a relationship to our own body, a supported and more full inhabiting of our own body. exactly the one we have been given and have at this point in life. A safe enough environment to do that, a safe enough environment to explore all the interrelational bodies that arise when we meet somebody. When I talk to a particular person, I can feel that my being is getting... organized around meeting that person and by that person that meets me.

[06:33]

And I may talk about the same thing, for example, to you. And then I talk about the same thing to you sitting beside her. I will talk to you. What is your name? Rhonda. I will talk to you about it not in exactly the same way as I will talk to you. What is your name? Adam. And we all know that. When you think of something that is active and occupying you in your life, and you talk to this friend or that co-worker, even though you talk about the same thing, what comes to the foreground, what gets emphasized, how you talk about it is different because the person in front of you, the two beings and two bodies configure each other and reconfigure each other.

[07:39]

So we're trying during this practice period also to see what can we create as a safe enough person to explore that and be interested in that and be able to actually look at it. I'm saying safe enough because life is not safe. It's just a fact. There is no... We try to make it safe and we try to... And it's not safe. We can have a heart attack this minute. A friend of ours can be run over by a car or fall ill. We can have a flood destroying our houses. We can have a hurricane, an earthquake.

[08:41]

Being alive means being in a... unpredictable universe. In that sense, it's not safe. But we can make it safe enough. And the word enough is actually one that almost doesn't exist in the Western culture. And it's the most profoundly liberating and helpful. It's not just a word, it's actually an attitude. Because if we, if enough were cultivated in our culture, there would be enough for everybody. But we have more is better, more beautiful, more money.

[09:46]

more things. And when we have more, more and more. And less is not good. So we're going to cultivate a little bit of enough here during this practice period and see where that leads us. So you may have noticed that you know, in your body, you could maybe feel places where you felt very relaxed and other places where you felt a little tension or a little holding. And did that change when you looked around? For example, if that was in your back because you had no idea how many bodies are here behind me. Did anybody have that experience? Yeah, I see some. And did it change when you looked around and actually saw a face that looked back at you.

[10:49]

So that's another part is when we, and you felt safe enough to look around. So I think that's really great. And maybe some of you didn't look around. And that's okay. It's not like, oh, because it was safe for most, it should be safe for everybody. No. So, but for some of you, it was safe enough to look around and feel the change that that brings to actually turn toward rather than just stay braced and hope nothing is going to happen back there. So that's one part that we're also trying to do in this practice period. Can we turn to our own body? Because we have, probably most of us have, a very fixed, probably, and probably quite judgmental view of the body we have.

[11:59]

We have things we like and things we dislike, and that's pretty fixed. And... how can we open that up? Because this body is actually what allows us to be alive in this one life. Without it, we're not here. And we keep forgetting that. We start using it for what we want to do and then we get really mad and upset or depressed when it starts not being able to do that anymore because it's getting older. It can't jump from a wall anymore. It can't run on the bus anymore. It has trouble here and there.

[13:03]

But it's still the body we have. still the body which allows us to be here, and it's still the body that in Buddhism is said is the best body you can get in this phenomenal world to be able to wake up, to be fully awake, fully alive, and fully human. And it doesn't depend on how old or how creaky it is. It gets harder to start practicing when you're old because your habits have become so strong and your energy has lessened so you don't have so much energy to change things. So there's no time to lose, really. If we want to take advantage of this incredible gift that we've been given to be born as a human being. So we are trying in this practice spirit to create safe enough body environment, an environmental body that helps us turn towards the body we've been given just as it is, to turn towards the interrelation in bodies as it arises when we have to deal with the others that are here too.

[14:41]

and sometimes not with the ones we would choose to deal with, they just showed up. I wouldn't necessarily choose if I had to choose. So there's also not so much picking and choosing who's here, which is a great practice opportunity. And create a structural body, which is really a challenge here at the city center, which is right in the middle of the city. The front door opens and here is the city with all its wonderful things to get away from how we feel, to get distracted, to not feel your body if you don't want to. So other places have a container around them that contains the practice spirit. We have to do that all by ourselves.

[15:42]

The front door is open. The life of the city comes in. When we step out, we have often a homeless person sleeping on the doorsteps. So it's right in our face. And how do we create a body that is a container and that's not just a barrier? And what's the difference between a container and a border wall? It's not an easy answer. But our bodies are absolutely interconnected with everything, with every other body, with everything, with nature outside, with everybody we encounter, with things that happen far away, with bodies we don't know.

[16:46]

We are connected like the, you know, you know the thing about the trees, that they have this network underground that... They talk to each other far away and tell each other that there is danger or some insects coming and then the other animals know to know that if they walk upwind, the trees haven't gotten the message, they don't get the message. I mean, how do they know that? But they do. And our bodies are like that too. Our bodies have the capacity to, for example, sustain impact and not be traumatized by it. Sustain a trauma but not remain traumatized. Animals in the wild don't have post-traumatic stress disorders.

[17:54]

Animals in captivity do, domestic animals do, but animals in the wild don't. If they escape a predator, they have a way to, their nervous system has a way to bring itself back to be regulated from that extreme activation, and they go back and they don't go, where is the eagle or where is the tiger or where's the... They don't, but we humans do because we have unlearned to listen and be really connected to our bodies. So we want to kind of re-inhabit our bodies and see how we do that together in these 10 weeks. So how do we cultivate a friendly enough and welcoming enough environment?

[19:06]

Because that's the beginning. Because we all have created... So I had the opportunity actually to work on a maternity ward as a physical therapist. And in that clinic, they had the mothers and the babies in the same room. So every morning I would come to the clinic and I would have a list of all the women that had given birth that night. And my job was to go to their room and do some exercises so their circulation was going well and they wouldn't have blood clots and stuff like that. So I would go to these rooms. It was a revelation. I mean, there were all these newborn babies. One baby sleeping like that. I mean, just a manifestation of abandoned trusting.

[20:11]

I mean, completely. Right? There was a baby. Oh, my God. Where did I get... Where am I? Ooh. There were babies... nervous babies, babies in distress, everything in between. And there were the mothers. That was another revelation. There were the moms that were like, you know, in awe, just totally, just looking at this being and wondering, Who is this? Look at this, you know, kind of. There were mothers who were already managing the tyrant that they expected to now run their life, right?

[21:16]

This tiny little baby, already geared to control it and manage it and keep a handle on things, everything in between. So this is when we get born. This starts, of course, already in utero, right? How those women and the babies experience their pregnancy, which has to do how they were babies. So we have also generational things that get passed on to us. But then we meet our environment. We get born to this particular circumstances, mom and dad, and maybe siblings or no siblings, or siblings that have died before we got born, which kind of create a whole different environment.

[22:17]

And all these experiences our body registers. The energy with which it's picked up... the energy which it is being soothed or not soothed, when it needs soothing, how it's fed, if we can digest what it's given. So all this, but these experiences are all happening in our body. There's yet no mind that can put the name on anything. So our bodies already have gotten a whole list of responses and reactions and protective mechanisms before we even have a thought, before we can think. Then we start being able to have thoughts. So our neocortex develops and we can create concepts. And then we try to make sense of those experiences.

[23:20]

So we create... an idea about ourselves, what's good about us and what gets us into trouble, which means it's bad. Because a baby in trouble is in danger. He can't say to his parent, you know, you are having a problem, I'm going somewhere else. Right? You're drunk or you're dysregulated or you're crazy. I'm looking for other parents. No. So the baby also can't distinguish and actually notice that it's not It experiences it. I'm causing the problem. My crime gets me shut into the room and the door closed. Or my needing something doesn't bring what I need. So we learn to survive. And we have a mindset that tells us these things I better don't show because they get me into trouble. And they get me into trouble of not being able to survive.

[24:23]

And we don't revise that when we keep living. We're just there in our bodies and we don't even know that. We think that. So how to go back, how to reconnect and actually explore these things in a safe enough environment, we won't be able to do in 10 weeks. but we can do as much as we can. And that might be enough to keep us being curious and looking, turning towards what our body is saying and letting it guide us a little bit more and collaborate, create a collaboration rather than a dominance. So I would like to suggest a few practices.

[25:45]

So part of... First, creating a body of safety and kindness and appreciation allows us to be curious. Because we can only be curious when we feel safe enough. We can only learn when we feel safe enough. And we can only learn and be curious when we're connected enough to this body. So I would suggest that we, for example, you, if you feel inclined to, at home every day, you take a little moment in the evening before you go to sleep. It's a good time, for example, to just appreciate and list to yourself how your body has supported your life. It woke up in the morning.

[26:49]

You weren't dead. It has been breathing through the whole day. You didn't faint from lack of oxygen. It allowed you to eat. It allowed you to safely get to work and back. It allowed you to talk to who you talk to and to listen. We have somebody here who can't hear, so that's a whole other story. That doesn't mean his life is less full, but it's very different. It allows you to digest, so you're not dying from renal failure or, you know, blockage in your intestines. It does these things that we never, we just take for granted.

[27:56]

So we had a young group of Tibetan Thich Nhat Hanh students that traveled the country trying to encourage people to practice. You might remember when they were here. They were in the dining room. There were some nuns, young nuns, and there were young men and that weren't ordained. And the one young nun said to us, you know, we call the bathroom, the toilet, a rest room. Do you ever go and rest there? Do you go there and while your body is, you know... pooping or peeing, have you already reached for the paper or have you been there for that event and then reached for the paper? And she said it came to her to appreciate that our bodies is doing that because her mother had surgery, had intestinal surgery, and she had helped her mother and she was outside the bathroom and could hear how much pain her mother was in.

[29:11]

And that made her aware of how we just are somewhere else. We're just always somewhere else that we think is more important. And where we are is not in the present moment. So when we die in the present moment, we are not there for it. We will have been thinking about tomorrow, which doesn't arrive. We will be... And there is something about that not being in the moment which takes us away from being fully able to respond to what's happening even if it's dying. And then later we think, oh, I missed that and I missed that and why? I didn't really experience that because I was busy with the past or busy with the future in my head. which the past is remembered and the future is not here yet.

[30:16]

So this appreciation practice, to just bring to your awareness all the things your body actually does to support your life, to support your work, to support your relationships, to support your joys and your sorrows and your everything. would be a nice practice to do. And the other one would be... I want to give you two. The other one would be to identify a corner in your space, in your home or in your... and you leave that corner with no trace. When you do something there, you clean it up so there's no trace of what you've done.

[31:25]

It can be your stove, it can be your sink, it can be your desk, it can be your table somewhere in the corner, but Try out to leave no trace, just in a little defined corner that you think you can manage. So don't make it too big. Because what is just enough so you can do it is setting you up for success. If you want to do it too much or perfectly, we will all fail because that doesn't work. When we start looking at our bodies and our minds, but turning our attention really on our body and its senses, we also start looking for what?

[32:35]

is our window of tolerance. I think that word or that concept came up in trauma healing therapy and in neuroscience. It's the zone between being hyper-aroused and hypo-aroused in the nervous system. So when we're hyper-aroused, we are... I have it written down. We become highly sensitive. We can become highly sensitive to sound, to other bodies around, to become hypervigilant to our surroundings. There's often anxiety. We can't organize ourselves. organize our thinking clearly. We can't really plan.

[33:37]

Our capacity to stay focused is impaired. We feel everything is too much, too loud, too much, too fast, too, too, too, too. Hypoarousal makes us... feel apathic, disconnected, also not able to kind of sustain any concentration, feeling stuck, feeling things don't move, I can't move, disabled, the cognitive processing, the capacity to process cognitively what's going on is disabled, It's also disabled in hypervigilance, in hyperarousal. We feel spacey, kind of distant, removed, numb.

[34:45]

So these are two extremes. And then somewhere between those is a zone where we have access to our capacities. So... And that can change. So this morning when Mary asked me, do I need help? I felt I needed help because I felt my window of tolerance had been shrinking over the last four days. This has been such an intense time that I'm... I'm getting exhausted on some levels. I'm getting stretched and pushed and pulled. And it's all lovely, but also there is sleep. You know, I wake up in the middle of the night and I feel like I'm thinking and I'm clenching my teeth. It's a steep entry, you know, and it's for many of us.

[35:51]

And so I could feel my window of tolerance is shrinking. So knowing that and paying attention to that, so you should have seen me try to prepare for this lecture. I mean, it was like walking around in an absolutely chaotic thing with fabulous ideas, but coming from all directions and not settling down, you know, like puff, puff, puff. So my room looks like that with papers all over the place, right? So... Knowing that, being aware of that helps me to slow down and stop trying where it's not working. Which when I don't know this, which also happens, I keep trying to do what's not working. And I try harder to do what's obviously not working. And a lot of us do that.

[36:54]

So it helps me. So I move a little slower. I think, well, you're all going to be here and nobody is going to be, you know, dangerous to me. You might think this was just a stupid lecture. That's okay. But... reconnect to this is how it is at the moment, and this is the reality that you are sitting here. Some of you I know, and some of you I don't, and some of you I get to know. And that calms me down and allows me to sit here and now have been talking for almost 45 minutes, to my own surprise. So that too... For you, that you can pay attention to.

[37:55]

When do you start getting hyper-aroused or hypo-aroused? When do you start disconnecting or start kind of flailing around? That means something is too much and what helps you kind of regulate your nervous system, give your nervous system a chance to calm down. Walk around the block. Leave the room. Look. Go look for something that's pleasing to you. Touch your body because we disembody somehow when we get, you know, squeeze your legs, squeeze your arms. Just make yourself feel you're here, you know. It changes something immediately. Feel your feet on the ground. Lean against the wall and feel the support. Just do, you can do different things too and then see what do I do next. That's the window of tolerance.

[38:59]

I did not ask who is here for the very first time. Can you keep your hands up so I can have time to actually see your faces? Yes. Hello. Well, thank you for coming. That was courageous. Did it stretch your window of tolerance? Just take a moment and see how did that go? Was it kind of a little bit where you're on one side of the other? Did you come back to a tolerable zone? Or did it keep you in the zone? And that's not your fault. That's just how your body's wired. So that's a good opportunity to see. Did you... feel more comfortable as you were here? Or did you stay the same? Were you comfortable from the beginning?

[40:02]

Or did you move to one or the other side? Or did you go daydreaming, leave the room? It's all okay. It's more like, can we notice it? So while we have a window of tolerance that has a very big effect on us in our nerves, between hyper arousal and hyper arousal we can create a window a big window of tolerance in our capacity to let it be I mean we do something we don't let hyper arousal we try to help it to get back but we don't say well that's bad I can't have that because we do have it so it's It's a moot point to say, I don't want it, I don't. So can we tolerate it's here? Because when we can tolerate it, it's here, then we can find out what we can do to help it.

[41:04]

And when we're totally disconnected, oh, disconnection, that's part of being alive. So what helps it? Not, you shouldn't be disconnected, that. So there's this tool. ways of tolerance. Okay, I think that's enough for today. So we have many classes going on that start tomorrow, and I think you can sign up for them. All of them have something to do with embodying your body, inhabiting your body more fully, but in different ways. We have an online participation, which has its great advantage that you can watch what happened today, what happened last Wednesday, the class that will start next Saturday, and other things.

[42:07]

And that stays available to you for six months after the practice period is over. So you can go back to it later, to the downloads and everything. And as an online participant, you're also invited to come to all the events in person if you happen to be in the neighborhood and close enough. And the only thing you would have to pay for are one-day sittings and sessions because then we feed you. And you can participate as a commuter. And these options are still, I think, all available. So look at it if you're interested. And the online participation also, we create smaller groups and they speak once a week with a practice leader about stuff that's coming up for them. So thank you very much for coming. Take good care of your bodies, which are how you are alive in this life.

[43:11]

They're precious. They're absolutely individual. No body can be compared to another body, even though our mind thinks it can. And be well and be safe. And thank you very much for helping create this lecture. Thank you for listening to this podcast offered by the San Francisco Zen Center. Our Dharma talks are offered at no cost, 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. May we fully enjoy the Dharma.

[43:58]

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