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. I feel in a way like I'm returning home. I've been, for the last five months, Since early January, I've been practicing and teaching in other places other than city center. Does this sound too loud? No? Okay. It sounds too loud to me, but... I've been practicing in other places. For three months, I was at Tassajara, leading the winter practice period, and then I came back, and then quite soon after, I went to Ireland, and then to Slovenia, which is in Eastern Europe, part of old Yugoslavia.

[01:26]

and doing lots of sushins, five, and lots of one-day settings and things like that. So somehow this feels like a returning home, even though I've only witnessed this arrangement of the absence of the Buddha Hall. What I'd like to do today is start with the guided meditation and then elaborate on that. The guided meditation is to emphasize, not to help us all to settle, but to emphasize a particular aspect of awareness that is in many ways the foundation of Zen practice.

[02:36]

I think of it as opening to what's coming in through the sense doors, the eye, the ear, the nose, the tongue, the physical sensation. and the mind. So if you could, if you're not already, if you could just take a posture that you can sit in with comfort and stability and uprightness for the next five to ten minutes, somewhere in between. And if you could make the distinction between getting that instruction and how your mind directs your body. And as you get in touch with your body, if you can start to respond to the sensations.

[03:50]

Does your body feel balanced over your sit bones? Is there some way in your upright posture you can let your spine lengthen? Is there some noticeable tension in your body? Can you bring awareness to it and invite it to relax? And maybe it'll accept the invitation, or maybe it won't. And then if you would, bring your hands up, like I'm doing. You could watch this for a moment. And then with your awareness and your vision on your fingertips and thumb tips, just bring them lightly touching.

[05:06]

And just notice the sensation of touch. And then if you would, close your eyes. And keep noticing the sensation of touch. And then with your eyes closed, take your fingers and thumbs about a half inch away from each other. Then with your eyes closed, see if you can let your fingers and your thumbs all touch at the same time. And then with sustaining that

[06:28]

attention to your fingertips. Slowly lower your hands down. And then bring, very mindfully, bring your hands into the mudra, sometimes called the cosmic mudra. Your thumb tips are lightly touching. Fingers of your left hand. overlap your right hand. Your thumb tips are around level with your navel. And your little fingers are against your abdomen. And your four fingers and your thumbs make an oval. just as you were feeling the sensation, the physical sensation of touch in your fingertips, can you open to the physical sensations of the body?

[07:57]

Can you notice the difference between thinking, my knee, my elbow, my neck, and the difference between thinking, that thought, and the sensation, the physical sensation of experiencing that part of the body? Just as you are attuning to physical sensation, can you attune to the sensation of sound, of hearing? with sound and physical sensation as a basis?

[09:52]

Can you be receptive to whatever happens? This physical sensation, the sound, even the thought that arises. The one thing I've noticed over the years of trying to teach and guide and support other people's practice is that it seems to be as we open to awareness, it teaches us.

[11:30]

It teaches us how to practice. When I led the practice period at Tassahara, the theme of the practice period was the practice of awakening. I came up with that, reflecting on the teachings of Shakyamuni Buddha. And when you look at the early teachings, the early suttas of Buddhism, you can see how modest they are in a way. The elaborations that came later have a distinct shift from the modesty of the early teachings.

[12:33]

The early teachings in many ways, have this flavor of the practice of awakening. During the practice period, I was trying to convey the simplicity of that theme, and then also the enormous challenge it is for us as humans engage that thing. One thing you discover in a practice period in a formal monastic setting where you're more or less in that process all your waking hours of the day. All sorts of things happen to each one of us. Sometimes we're deeply grateful to be there and inspired and enthusiastic about the practice.

[13:46]

And sometimes it feels like the opposite. We're deeply questioning being there or we just don't feel inspired or we feel preoccupied with the workings of our own imagination and psychological being. And then shifting from there to Ireland, where I was in the north of Ireland. I lived there until I was about 21. And then I left and ended up in San Francisco. But the ambience of returning... of that place and in a way returning home and then in another way feeling like a stranger in a strange land.

[14:52]

And then going from there to Slovenia that I have no childhood connections to. I didn't even know it existed really until about 20 odd years ago. But what my mind was bringing up was, how is practice, what's the commonality of practice? That is there in a monastic setting? Is there in the setting of Northern Ireland? Northern Ireland went through about 30 years of intense civil unrest. polite way of saying, you know, a lot of violence between the Protestant and Catholic communities in Northern Ireland. And then Slovenia went through a period of violence, brutal warfare when Yugoslavia broke up.

[16:06]

The Bosnians, the Serbians, and the Croatians all fighting each other. And then how to appreciate what Buddhism has to offer, what the practice of awakening has to offer in each of those distinct settings. That's what I was asking myself. And before this talk, I was asking myself that. And this little guided meditation that I was just offering, if you think about it, this is what we are all the time. We're a sensated being.

[17:07]

We're taking in sensory input through our senses, including our mind. And then we process it. We like it, we don't like it, we find it significant, irrelevant, it stirs us in so many ways. And then to relate to the complexity of being by returning to the simplicity of the sensate, of just feeling the sensations, is a way in which we start to deeply reconnect. to kind of the basis of what it is to be human.

[18:10]

And in how I'd like to express that this morning, and you're welcome when it comes to the Q&A to ask me to inquire further, I'd like to expand upon it by... addressing the seven factors of awakening. I've been told that at some point, close to the end of his life, Shakyamuni was asked to summarize his teachings. And he summarized the practice of awakening. And he summarized them by presenting the seven factors. Seven factors are awareness, investigation, the energy of application, the joy, the ease, the concentration, and the equanimity.

[19:23]

So in terms of awareness, there are two aspects that I'd like to mention. There is directing attention and receptive attention. There is the sensate, and then there is the response to what's coming in through the senses. And of course, all that sounds a little clinical and dispassionate. But actually, as a human being, it's anything but. Maybe it would be more accurate to call it the passion play, the dramatic...

[20:33]

intense passion play of being alive. And yet, this fundamental practice of awareness, of opening to the senses, in a way it helps us to not be enthralled by the complexities that come up for us. the psychological, the emotional, the way that influences our perception, the way that influences our behaviors. And all of this, the subject matter of awareness. In a way, in the practice of awareness, we direct ourselves towards the fundamentals, knowing quite well that what we will receive is the passion play of a human life.

[21:51]

I think sometimes that we think... we're obliged to purify the human experience. And actually, when you look at the early suttas and the later teachings, in Zen, the teacher saying to the monk, this very mind is Buddha. Not saying, when it's pure, When it's nothing but sensation, then it's Buddha. But to say that in all of its manifestations, this mind, this body, these ears, this breath, they exhibit the suchness of being alive. And to sit like that when we do zazen, when we engage zazen, when we be zazen.

[23:08]

That everything that arises is the direct expression of not only being the person we are, but also the human condition and also the vibrancy of life. And how does that manifest? The second factor of awakening, investigation. How does that manifest? What's happening now? How do we open to the fullness of what we are? How do we not allow zazen just to become some task where we are endeavoring to tame, to control, to purify the human experience?

[24:23]

How do we open to each moment, each situation, to each interaction? to each expression of the singularity of our being. Maybe this is one of the emphasis in Zazen, in the Zen school, is that investigation is considered to be an ally. In a way, the Zen Kahn is asking us to bring this fundamental attention of the senses so that it can hold the complexities of a human existence and explore them and learn from them.

[25:31]

And watching what happens in a three-month intensive... I remember the first intensive I led at Tassahara, the first practice period. I remember being perplexed in the first couple of weeks, thinking, but wait a minute, aren't we all being here to meditate and... take up this time-honored practice of the last thousand years. And I was expecting everyone, including myself, to become calm and serene and filled with joy and appreciation. And that did not seem to be what was happening. I mean, there were moments of it. but a whole lot of else was happening.

[26:41]

It seemed equal measures of settling and unsettling, equal measures of love and hate of your fellow practitioners. How can we investigate it and acknowledge it in a way that teaches us? And that's the energy of the next factor. Viriya. It's an interesting term because it covers from effort, the effort of engagement. the persistence, the continuation of engagement, and then some amazing quality that when we just allow it to happen, when we just accept it, to fully accept all that's happening for us, there's a way in which

[28:07]

we have to drop the self. It's kind of a paradoxical notion. To accept the self, we need to drop the self. The self is generating preferences. And when we're caught up in those preferences, you know the teachings, the Dharma teaches us that when we're caught up in the preferences, we're not connected to the foundational experiences of being alive. And that in some ways, we need to let go or loosen up our preoccupations to experience something more elemental, something more deeply informative about our being. Like you can think of a marvelous thing to do is to watch yourself in zazen.

[29:23]

And when something arises, is it energized? Or is it just allowed to be the sensation, the phenomena of the moment? maybe something unpleasant happened in your life, and you recall it, and then is it just allowed to be a sensation, however that might be experienced? Or is it energized, and is it the foundation of a judgment? the foundation of a narrative about your life, about some other person, about some interaction. Sometimes it's just very informative to watch when you get hooked and you energize it, and when you don't get hooked and you don't energize it, it's like, oh, unpleasant sensation.

[30:40]

unpleasant interaction, unpleasant emotion. And then the next two factors, I'm going to put them together. One is joy, and then the next one is ease. It in some ways We can think of them. We can be exuberantly joyous or profoundly at ease. It doesn't happen to us that often. But little glimmers of joy, little glimmers of appreciation, of enthusiasm, to us all the time.

[31:46]

And those glimmers of joy can soften something in us, can open us up to acceptance, gratitude. In both Ireland and Slovenia, I find myself emphasizing a certain disposition. Not a Pollyannish, you know, everything is just fine the way it is. It sort of is and it sort of isn't, you know, most of the time. It is what it is. And when we get hooked by it, this sort of unpleasantness is magnified.

[32:57]

And when we're not hooked by it, there's something more spacious about it. There's something more open to possibility. We can... savor our life in a kind of wonderful non-attached way. We can say, oh, look at how I'm responding to this. We can add that spaciousness, that ease to what's going on. And it's not so much that we can take that as an idea and then impose it upon ourselves. It's more intimate than that. And that's part of its beauty, quite literally.

[34:00]

And also how it initiates for us a sense of... as I was saying, possibility. And the way, at the heart of it, the workings of it are, it's almost like being okay, that life is not always okay. It's like when you go to the monastery or when you sit a period of zazen with the fixed notion, this is what's going to make my life okay. Then you can be frustrated, upset, disappointed, embittered by the not okayness of your life.

[35:14]

of your period of Zazen. But when you can explore, what is it to be okay that life is not okay all the time? When it's turned into an idea like that, it seems almost ridiculous. But there's something... that we can explore in our own being, that mostly pleasant and unpleasant spontaneously stir up a response. And in that response that's instantly brought forth, there's a kind of reactiveness And that reactiveness sort of creates a solid version of reality.

[36:26]

When it imbues how we're thinking, when it imbues how we're feeling, when it imbues the conclusions we reach, you know? The world seems very solid. When the thought, when the pleasant or unpleasant sensation provoke a certain way of thinking that's endorsed by our feelings and a psychological significance, it becomes very solid. And this is why returning to the senseit, having a steady practice of returning to the moment, both in zazen and in our life, then it starts to become possible that we can experience

[37:48]

we can have an attitude of okayness about the not-okayness of our life. And this is a delicate matter for us, because in many ways, our reactiveness has a kind of visceral dimension to it. This is what needs to happen to sustain our being. And then, of course, the great irony of it is that this is how we become stuck. So being able to return to a kind of a softer approach to life, to find the appreciation and the gratitude.

[39:01]

And then underneath that, to find a way to sit and be in our life. in our interactions, in our doing of our daily life. That there's a way to do it that doesn't require the contraction of reactiveness. And I know in a way, just saying it like that doesn't seem... So plausible, maybe. In Northern Ireland, for a whole centuries of reasons, literally, the Catholics and Protestants became each other's enemies.

[40:10]

But it wasn't until they reached a point where they were willing to listen to each other, where there was something in the attitude of both sides started to soften. That the possibility of compromise, the possibility of just Maybe this person is not my enemy. Maybe we can coexist peacefully and appreciatively. And when that happened, with the support of a mediator, then

[41:13]

they were able to craft some other possible scenario. Our practice asks of us, the practice of awakening, the practice of awareness, asks of us to find that adjustment within our being. How do we... relate to our own being? How do we relate to others' being? In something more than desire and aversion. In something more than moving forward or pulling back. In an engagement in what we're engaged in, that opens up possibilities.

[42:16]

And then the sixth factor, samadhi, it's like not only do we open up to it, but we engage it. a thoroughness of engagement. Sometimes that thoroughness of engagement can feel like a willingness to be present for the ever-changing experience of being alive. Sometimes it takes the demeanor of being more open to this moment. feeling it more deeply. And both of these practices are not simply the territory of Zazen.

[43:26]

We can experience this throughout the day. And in many ways, formal Zen training is indeed this process. give yourself to this, then when the bell rings, stop doing that and start doing this. This is one of the disciplines of formal Zen training. And yet, it's also how our life appears for us. For whatever reason, we do one thing, and then when the time comes, we do another. And each one thing is asking us to do it completely. And then the fifth factor, the seventh factor, is equanimity.

[44:41]

And again, we can turn that into an ideal, which is we're always utterly serene with what arises. But I'd suggest to you, more practically, more realistically, that each thing that happens to us moves us out of balance, and then we bring it back to balance. That we cultivate a certain resilience to what life presents and how it challenges us. Because it challenges us, but it also delights us. It also nourishes us.

[45:46]

And when we can keep that in mind, one of the attributes of equanimity is that we hold this moment in a wide context. Okay, this moment has a kind of positive expression. that I'm pleased with. But not to cling to that. And then when it changes, we accept that it's changing. Or the unpleasant. To not feel like, well, we're burdened by the unpleasant or the challenging. but rather this too is a teacher.

[46:54]

This too is the inevitable expression of being alive. So then all seven of these come into play. And in the Zen way, we return to the . And as I travel through the practice period, Ireland and Slovenia, I find each place creates its own way of dealing with practice, its own way of expressing it. and its own way of calling it forth.

[47:57]

So if you can think of yourself as you engage, and maybe there's some intentionality, but there's also something that arises within you. And can you trust that? and you trust that something in you, beyond what your mind might generate, practices, learns how to practice, and brings it forth. Thank you. 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.

[49:01]

For more information, please visit sfzc.org and click giving. May we fully enjoy the Dharma.

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