This podcast is offered by the San Francisco Zen Center on the web at sfzc.org. Our public programs are made possible by donations from people like you. Good morning, everyone. Welcome. Yeah, welcome to Green Gulch. And I was just welcomed here yesterday in a very warm-hearted way by the residents and Very happy to be here for a little while. Is my voice loud enough you can hear me? Not quite. So let's see if we can turn it up a little bit. It's a very strange question to ask because there's people who can't hear the question that I want an answer from. But how is it now? Is it okay, the volume now? Okay, and I have a tendency of speaking softly. So if that's the case, you can wave at me or something.

[01:03]

Sometimes there's a reluctance to call Zen meditation meditation. Instead, sometimes it's called just sitting. And not only is it called just sitting, but the expression just sitting represents something very important, some people might say profound, about what the heart of Zen practice is, Zen training, Zen life, to just sit. And it can seem like a silly thing to say, because it's nothing. Just to sit means, you know, nothing's going on, and why would you do that? And everyone can just sit. But when we come to do this posture, assume a kind of Zen posture, each person has their own version of it, what often we discover, that we're doing a lot of things that are not just sitting.

[02:22]

In fact, just sitting might disappear. from your mind, from your consciousness, because you have important grievances to think about. You have important futures to plan. You have fantasies to fantasize about. You have ruminations to ruminate about. And it's very easy to get pulled into all kinds of agendas and purposes. It might be that you have an important enlightenment to attain. And so you're going to really put yourself into that. And you're not just sitting. You have a goal. You're striving. You have ambition. You have conceit. All these other things there. Or it might be that you have important resistance. This is too religious. I shouldn't be here. These people are completely crazy. Some of us might be. It's true. But the point is that in you,

[03:24]

you're doing more than just sitting. You're judging, you're criticizing, you're afraid, you're anxious, you're angry, you're grieving, you're sad. All things which are okay, but if we inhabit all these other things as we're attached to them, participating in those things, then we're doing something different than just sitting. And so what is it to just to sit? One of the things it is, is to notice all the ways we're not doing that. And that's quite significant. People learn a lot about themselves. This kind of Zen practice is a deep form of introspection, where in a certain kind of way, you want to get to know yourself inside and out in a way that you cannot do if you're always following the agenda, if you're always following a thought train and ideas and futures and pasts. There's something very profound, very profound.

[04:28]

Is it sound okay? There's an echo to me. Maybe we need to turn it down a little bit, up a little bit. Let's see, because I was... Yeah, reverberating. So let's see, is that any better? Good, good, okay. So to just sit, I can put up with it, but is it bothering you too much, some of you? I'm hard of hearing, so for me to hear it, a high-pitched voice is quite special. So just to sit. And we learn a lot about ourself that way. And it's important to learn ourselves inside and out so that we can learn an alternative. so we can learn how to be free in the middle of our life as it is.

[05:30]

And how do you become free? Just sit. But that's not good enough. I'm supposed to have something to show for myself. Now you're not just sitting. Now you're concerned and preoccupied about having something to show for yourself. Just sit. And something very profound begins happening. And what I'd like to say is what the profound thing that can happen is that your nature begins to express itself. Your nature begins to unfold and develop. We as human beings are part of nature. And nature has a phenomenal capacity to grow, to change, to reproduce, to shift and change, to come to homeostasis. And we can see it in the natural world. I've been coming to Green Gulch for 50 years. And it's remarkable to see nature come back here.

[06:31]

It used to be a ranch and had prized bulls grazing around the fields here and horses and various things. But the fields were all the way down to the beach. And the creek was channeled. And when I was here early on, just before you get to the beach, the creek down there was just fields on both sides. And we had a pump, water pump, in the creek at the very bottom. And I used to go down there to turn it on and irrigate the fields. And now you go down there and the riparian zone has been restored. It has grown back. It's remarkable to see how much has grown back in these 50 years. Some of it was kind of helped. They got out of the way, we removed some of the obstacles, and slowly it came back. Nature has a phenomenal way of healing itself, coming back if it wants to, if it's given a chance.

[07:37]

And we have a nature inside that's the same way. We have a nature that knows how to grieve. We have a nature that knows how to heal. We have a nature that knows how to develop and grow and for children to learn language and learn how to walk. We have a nature that knows how to grow. Oddly enough, we have a nature inside that knows how to age. We even have a nature that knows how to die. A friend of mine many years ago, He was very anxious. And the thing he was most anxious for was to, he was going to get cancer and die. And he was always anxious. And then he got cancer, and he was going to die, and he stops being anxious. And it was quite remarkable to see the change. It was the first time I'd ever known him, and he was just peaceful. He was at ease. But he still, for a while, had a little concern that he wouldn't die right.

[08:42]

So he bought all these books to learn how you die right. People have been dying for a long time without a book, without a manual. Somehow or other, our system is made to die. It knows when the time comes how to do it. You don't have to worry about that. You might want to prolong it or delay it, but sooner or later it knows what to do. We have this profound nature, being born and dying as part of it. And there's a way of getting out of our own nature so that our own nature can restore itself. Our own nature can come back in a profound way. Many people have completely covered over, cemented over their inner nature. They've lost it. There's no connection to it. They live in a world of thoughts and ideas and pixels and screens and living in a world that in some ways is from the neck up.

[09:49]

That's what's prioritized and what's really emphasized. And in Zen, when we just sit, we're discovering there's much more from the neck up. There's something very profound in our whole system, and it works together as a whole, that is more than anything that you could engineer, anything you can plan and make happen. There's something profound within you that knows how to unfold, knows how to come into homeostasis, knows how to heal, and knows how to free you, if you give it a chance. So part of just sitting is to get out of the way, to be so simple like you're trusting something deep within. I would like to tell my story of how I discovered something like this. Not because my story, my way, and even my understanding of what I'm talking about is right for you. The whole, I think, part of this idea of this expression, just sitting, is for you to discover what that is for you.

[10:56]

Because there's no final answer. Every day you'll be different. Every day, every hour you'll be different. And you'll discover just sitting is a different quality, characteristic way of being on that day and that hour. And it's a phenomenal journey to be on, to keep asking, what is it now? What wants to just sit right now? What wants to reveal itself right now? What truth, what way of being wants to come forth right now? What wants to be born right now? There's something about having that question, that openness, that willingness to trust. There's something deeper within us that makes just sitting very personal, sometimes transpersonal, sometimes non-personal. And what it's not, I would say in my English, it's not impersonal. Impersonal is kind of like drag.

[12:00]

But non-personal is the light. Profoundly non-personal. Profoundly personal. Profoundly transpersonal. There's something really special I like about all this. So my story. I encountered Zen through the books and my beginner's mind. And... It was written by the founder of this center here, Burpat Zen Center. And that book spoke to me in a way that no other book had ever spoken to me. I kind of read it slowly once I started reading it. And I had this feeling that this man, Shunryu Suzuki Roshi, in his words on the page, was explaining things or saying things that I already knew. but I didn't know that I knew them. That was a feeling I had.

[13:02]

Yeah, I know this, but it was kind of remarkable. And so when I had a chance, I came to Zen Center. It seemed like a book had a lot to do with sitting Zazen, doing this, if I'm allowed for provisionally, called Zen meditation. And so I came to Zen Center and was introduced to Zazen. And... And I was really taken by Zen Center. I came for two weeks to be a guest student here. This was 1975, a long time ago. And then I felt I was a young man. I was 20. And so I decided that I had to do a few other things. So it took me almost three years before I came back to take care of loose ends. But in that process, I went back to college. And to finish the last two years of college, I dropped out, which was standard back then for many of us.

[14:06]

But by the time I went back to college, I'd already been introduced to Zazen. And I felt I was suffering. I knew I was suffering. And I didn't know how to address my suffering. But the only thing I could think of was... I'm going to meditate. I'm going to do Zen meditation because that somehow will address the suffering I had. And so I started meditating in the way that I was taught at San Francisco Zen Center, which was kind of, which is sit for 40 minutes every morning and every evening, but not on Sunday. Because back then in San Francisco, that was a custom. They never sat on Sunday. I never thought about it or questioned it, but I just thought, that's how it's done. So I sat six days a week. Sunday was off. And for a young college student, to meditate twice a day in retrospect is kind of unusual.

[15:13]

My roommates many years later I had back then said, it was kind of unusual, Gil. But because you disappeared every evening at 8.30 to do your meditation, our whole household shut down and went to bed and quiet down. The whole household, I thought it was normal. But it turned out that college students don't usually do that. And so I did it regularly. There was a sitting group I went to twice a week. And so it was a big part of my time. And after a while, I noticed something very unusual. That the suffering that had motivated me to start practicing wasn't there anymore. I didn't know why it wasn't there. But then I became phenomenally curious. Why did I continue meditating when the reasons for meditation had disappeared?

[16:17]

I was meditating to get rid of the suffering, stop suffering. And now that I stopped suffering, I was compelled to keep meditating. And I'm kind of a rational person to do things for reasons. And I didn't have a reason anymore. And I kept doing it and doing it and doing it. This is strange. But I just did it. Until one day, I had a realization. or something clicked. And I realized I was doing it because this was my way of expressing myself in the way that an artist paints to express herself, or a musician plays music to express themselves, or dances to express themselves. And so, in my way of doing the same, my art, was to meditate.

[17:20]

Because there was something that happened when I sat that way that kind of opened up, wakened up, that felt somehow a sense of wholeness, a sense of being alive in a clear, simple, healthy way. The language I used for myself back then was I had a feeling of integrity. And nowadays I think integrity is associated with the word being ethical. I don't think that's what I meant. I think I meant more a sense of feeling whole. I feel all of me is here in some nice way. And that feeling, that kind of somewhat vague, perhaps, somewhat nebulous feeling of vitality and aliveness that was flowing up and through my chest and through my body that was very simple, wasn't really dependent on anything. Luckily, I didn't know much about meditation. I was told, just sit up there. Sit up and follow your breath.

[18:21]

If I was going to explain what I was doing in doing Zen meditation, I was the practice of unconditionally accepting the present moment. Maybe that's another way of saying just sit. Unconditionally accept the present moment. Because I didn't know much about meditation, I didn't know I was supposed to stop thinking. that some people think. And so I continued thinking. It was fine. No problem there. And all kinds of things. If I had feelings, emotions, it was fine. Nothing was... I had no idea anything should be different. And one of the things that wasn't supposed to be different was, you know, my knees... I didn't have any of my knees weren't supposed to hurt. And they were supposed to just sit there with... painful knees. And then it just accepted. So that was what I was practicing over and over and over again.

[19:26]

And something, this thing was born inside of me, this I had never known before, or seldom known. I touched into it a little bit growing up here and there. This feeling of what was wanting to be expressed itself through me or in me or something. And that was a phenomenal thing to discover. I didn't know that at the time. I just knew it was there. It was important. And then a number of things started to happen. Still in college, I thought, Gil, this is very strange, that you should have this wonderful feeling of integrity when you sit and meditate, and you don't have it the rest of the day. And I said, you know, the line... between meditation and non-meditation, or the mind in meditation and the mind outside of meditation, that's an arbitrary line. I should be able to have this when I'm in my daily life as well. And that's one of the reasons I then came to Zen Center.

[20:28]

When I finished college, I came to be at San Francisco Zen Center to explore that, to discover that. Not to meditate more, but to discover how do you do this outside of meditation. I wanted to be a community of people who were doing this. And the consequence of coming to San Francisco Zen Center was I meditated more. And then I decided... And then I was here, living here at Green Gulch, and standing somewhere over there. One day we were chanting the Heart Sutra. No ears, no nose, no tongue, no body, no consciousness. No, no, no, no. And in the middle of... chanting, no form, no sensations, no perceptions, no mental formations, no consciousness. Something kind of suddenly kind of burst forth in that place of expressivity, that place where I discovered this deeper place that's not me, it's not the normal me, it's something non-personal that's deeply personal.

[21:39]

It arose and And someone said, don't go to graduate school, which was supposed to start in two weeks. Stay at Zen Center and go to Tassajara. And so I went to Tassajara and had my challenges there, challenges with myself. And I discovered all kinds of things about myself I didn't know and my own deeper challenges. And then I was sitting one day, looking at the Tassajara Creek, and I had a certain kind of gathering of attention around, because the abbot had suddenly appeared at the monastery, and I had a chance to talk to him, which was a big deal. It was hard to talk to him back then. So I was sitting there looking at the creek, gathering attention, what would I say to him? And then the same thing, from this deep place of expressivity, this deeper place inside, again, this boom, This thing arose, and there was unshakable knowing.

[22:43]

I knew something. I didn't have a reason for knowing it. That had to follow. But what I knew was I was going to be ordained as a Zen monk. Because there was a time at Cincinnati they called us monks, not priests. And boy, was I surprised after I was ordained. And the abbot said, we're not going to call you priests. What? That's not what I signed up for. I was going to be a monk. So then I became a priest. But the important thing, this deeper thing kind of arose, a deeper place of knowing. I'm not saying it should be that way for you, but as then I continued practicing, at some point I accidentally, almost, I was in Thailand and was introduced to the practice of vipassana. And these days I'm mostly known as a vipassana teacher. And when I went to Asia to really delve deeply into the teaching of vipassana, the reason I went, the reason and the motivation I had for it was to continue to learn shikantaza, the Japanese word, just sit.

[24:03]

Because I thought that the instructions of Vipassana would teach me how to just sit more thoroughly, more completely. And in fact, that's what it did. I followed the instructions carefully that in Vipassana was given. But the spirit in which I did it, the attitude in which I did it, was not one of attaining anything. It was not like a goal-oriented practice for me. It wasn't that... And the abbot was a little bit perplexed by me because he was all about having a goal. And I said, I'm not here to have a goal. And he said, what? That didn't compute for him, but he put up with me. But I was here to... I followed the instructions very, very carefully. And in fact, one of the great gifts that Vipassana gave me was this ability to be more thorough or complete in the just sitting.

[25:04]

I got to see all these ways, very subtle ways, subtler and subtle and subtler ways that had been invisible to me, that I was not just sitting. Subtle ways in which I wanted something different. Subtle ways I was trying to grab hold or resist. Subtle ways in which I had conceit. It was about myself and all these extra things I did. So part of the value of learning just to sit is we see what's extra. And as we do less and less of the extra, there's something that this Vipassana tradition calls, or that their word for it is, there's a number of words for it. But they're pointing to something that's profound within us. the nature within us, that's not dependent on what's happening in the world. It's not dependent on... So there's deep sensations that are not dependent on the sense doors being stimulated in the world around us.

[26:14]

It doesn't depend on what we see, hear, smell, taste, or the tactile experiences we have. There's a deep place of deeper sensations that can well up. And part of those deep sensations that well up is a feeling of tremendous joy, sense of well-being, delight, that has no reason. Remember I was a person who always wanted to have reasons? So to have joy for no reason, I mean, is that okay? Is that allowed? In Zen, the way I was taught Zen, back in the ancient times, You kind of, were kind of, meditative joy was kind of poo-pooed. If you told the teacher, you know, I have all this wonderful joy or happiness in my meditation, the usual response was, one more thing to let go of. Let go, let go.

[27:15]

There was something very profound about that answer that I appreciate a lot. The whole philosophy or the approach of practice makes sense to say that. But at the same time, I misunderstood. I thought it was not okay to have it. And as I went deeper and deeper into this, I discovered it's okay to feel joy. It's part of our nature. It's a natural thing to allow to happen when it's happening. It's not always there. There's a deeper knowing that can happen. Some of our... And that deeper knowing is where all of us are much more intelligent than our thinking mind realizes. If our intelligence depends on our thinking mind, chances are you can do better. And I learned that through this process, I learned to not rely on my thinking mind for the full picture.

[28:17]

I like my thinking mind. We have a good relationship. We're friends. And my thinking mind has an important role in my life. But I don't depend on it. My freedom, my deeper sense of well-being, my inner spiritual emotional health is not dependent on what I think. There's a deeper source. And the Buddha, in the ancient texts, talks about a way of thinking that doesn't involve discursive thought, doesn't involve conversational thinking, doesn't involve, does not involve fantasy, doesn't involve a lot of, you know, being lost in the past and the future. But there is a way of, so it's not the constructing mind, it's not the mind that makes things up. It's the mind, deep mind, that helps you ask liberating questions. the deep mind that knows something much deeper, because it integrates, remember integrity?

[29:22]

It integrates all of your, for all the different forms of intelligence, all the different forms of awareness, all the attentional faculty we have, they all come together. And when they work together, there's some deep kind of thinking that can go on. And for the Buddha, when Naitanya is awakening, how it came together for him was he asked profound questions about his experience in the present moment. And it turned out his questions were questions not questions about what is, not questions of why, but he asked questions of where. Where is his experience? Where is his experience being born? Where is it coming out of? And I thought that was brilliant to ask this question, but where? It was questions that didn't put him up in his thinking mind and figuring out mind.

[30:26]

Where is it? So this opening question here, and this opened for him to a very radical and thorough freedom, liberation, something open, something released in him. And they say that what was released was two things, two sides of the same thing. What was released was all forms of clinging, all forms of attachment. And the other side of that was suffering. The way that in the early tradition of Buddhism, they defined suffering, not all pain, not all emotional pain, but suffering... is what is born from clinging, what comes with clinging. So this practice of just sitting, kind of doing the closest thing you can to doing nothing.

[31:30]

It's not quite nothing, not quite doing nothing, but it's closer to doing nothing than it is to doing something. What is that? It's a lot to do about doing it through your body. Why? Because your body is not a hunk of flesh. It's not just a hunk of things that is able to carry your brain around effectively. I like to think that throughout our body there are nerves. Every time you something touches your fingertips and you feel the contact, there's a nerve there that feels that contact. And that has a nerve, that has, you know, the nervous system that has, you know, wires that go back all the way to somewhere at a central coordinating place, sometimes in your spine, sometimes in the brain.

[32:40]

And all the different signals that are coming in from all these different nerve endings throughout the body, the organs, all over, come together and get coordinated. And I read, sometimes the news is really important to read, just a few weeks ago, maybe some of you saw the headlines, and this was major news. Most news is old. Most headlines are old. It's just repeating the same thing over and over again. But this was news. They had discovered that people are most intelligent. They're kind of a sign of real intelligence is when all the different attentional and mental functions we have are coordinating with each other. And when they don't coordinate, when parts of ourselves are walled off, shut down, we can't do that full intelligence thing.

[33:46]

So the mind, no one knows what the mind is, I believe. At least I don't know what it is. But I believe the mind is wherever nerves are. So it means that the mind is throughout the sensate body. It's throughout the body that can feel sensations. So to live from the neck up, we leave out so much of who we are. And so one of the great joys that I've had through this practice of Buddhism, Zen, Vipassana, is a deep coming home into the body, abiding in the body, trusting the body, feeling the body is like, this is where life really can be lived fully. The thinking mind has a role. We like to put it on top so it feels a little bit like it's special. So it doesn't like to be diminished. But it's really at the top of a pyramid.

[34:52]

It's amazing human capacities below that neck that are really supporting it. And zazen practice is a practice that kind of puts the whole pyramid, the whole mountain, the whole being... back into harmony, so it can all operate together. It can all flow. And then in doing that, you'll get to discover what is your expression of life? What is it that wants to be born in you in a deep way each day? What can you discover that's deeper than any thought you can have, that lives from deep inside, and comes out and flows and teaches you, informs you, and maybe tells you more of who you are than any label you can put on who you are.

[35:53]

So that's just sitting. So I hope I have given you a little taste or a little bit something. So I told my story. But you're going to have to find out what your story is. And that my story that I told you is an old story. It's not the story of today. What it's like for me to just sit today. It won't be my story tomorrow. But what this just sitting is, is to show up and discover. What is just sitting today? What's included today? What's allowed today? And so we find our way in that freedom. So those are my thoughts for today. And am I on schedule to take questions? Yeah? So I think the idea now is to open the floor to you. And for that purpose, to make things easier, I'm going to put on my hearing aid.

[37:01]

Good to see you again, Gil. If you could wait one moment. Oh, sure. Yes, please. It's good to see you again, and thank you for your talk. Maybe this is not an appropriate time to ask this question, but I've always wondered, why is Buddhism put in the category of religion? Because there's no deity. And it seems like the practice is not worshipping God, but just evidence-based thinking. Basically, that's what Buddha was, was a deep thinker and... be examined, and it's more like medicine nowadays, as they call evidence-based. So what are your thoughts on that? Yeah, my thoughts is that Buddhism doesn't care whether it's a religion or not.

[38:15]

Oh, they had a choice. And legally, it's really useful in the United States to be a religion. Yeah. There's all kinds of benefits that come from being a religion. And so that's nice. And I've been told that in the old Soviet Union, Buddhism was not a religion, because that was dangerous to be a religion back then. So it's kind of fluid, it's flexible. But this is a big quandary. I have a PhD in religious studies, and it's fascinating that when they do these introductory courses for graduate students on the study of religion, that Buddhism perplexes religious definitions of religion because of what you just said. So people have tried to come up with non-theistic ideas of what religion is. And one is it's what gives human life ultimate meaning.

[39:19]

Most people have something that has ultimate meaning that they organize and base their whole life around. And I would say that my experience of what has happened to me in Buddhism, like what I'm talking about today, this deep sense of source, expressivity, the compassion that came out of that, that's a central organizing principle for my life. So I think that's close enough to a religion. And I was anti-religious when I was younger. So, you know, my friends complained to me when I was a Zen priest that I never used the word spirituality because I was kind of like, didn't even want to use that word. But I've kind of grown that now, maybe. So now I'm happy to use those words. And what I like about religion is that it's, to me personally, is it feels... kind of heartfelt for me, that word.

[40:23]

I know there's a lot of other associations with it. And I was on a panel once with Stephen Batchelor, who was kind of coined the term secular Buddhism. And I really kind of feel closely aligned to Stephen Batchelor in many ways, except for that word, secular Buddhism. Because my Buddhism is religious. I feel somehow it's... It represents something deeper that I can't even express that the word secular can't speak to for me. Thank you. Yes. So I saw a hand over here. So you can take the mic. I won't be able to hear you. Oh, there's a microphone. I'm sorry. How has it helped you deal with negative emotions like anxiety or anger, things like that? Well, to kind of stay close to the topic of this talk, I learned just to sit with anger.

[41:26]

And what that means, just anger. And just allow it to be there without making a story about it, without attacking it, without defending it, without feeding it anymore. Just make room. It's okay to be angry. Just sit with anger. In that moment, just to sit means just let the anger be there. But that's a very profound thing because it does mean I'm no longer participating in it. I'm no longer feeding it. It too can exist there. It too has a place. There's a kind of a trust that if I get out of the way of it and allow the anger or the grief to just be there, this natural system we are knows how to unfold and change. And one of the almost offensive, offending discovery of psychologists is that most emotions only last like 90 seconds unless we feed it.

[42:33]

And that's kind of, you know, it's offending because, wait a minute, I'm not doing this. So does that reply to your question well enough? I saw here in front of you. It's a little hard for me to track. I think I saw your hand in the front row there first. Thank you. This piece of paper, the four vows, beings are numberless, I vow to save them. What do I do about people who cannot seem to be able to be saved? And I'm imagining that what if people had decided that the meadows down by the creek should have been concreted over and nature did not have the ability to come up? And when I look at our government, other governments, what's going on in the world,

[43:40]

I see a lot of concrete. Yeah. And I cannot save them. I don't believe. So one of the ancient Chinese teachers that was the sixth patriarch said about this very topic, about these four vows, that you save all beings in your own mind first. And so what I mean by that, maybe he means by that, is that of course we can't save all beings. What does that mean? But what I discovered for me is that in this just sitting and having this expressivity of integrity arise, it wasn't just something being expressed, it was also something being responsive. I was available to receive the world and to experience the world and feel the world. And I felt a lot of suffering in the world.

[44:41]

And what was born inside of me was, from that suffering, was my compassion, my care for that, my desire to help and make a difference. And I love the saying, beings are numberless, I vow to save them. Not because I'm taking that on as I should, but rather that's kind of giving voice to what's being born within me. Yes. Yes. I want to reduce suffering in this world. Yes, I want to meet the suffering in this world. And from this yes, from this kind of not closing down, not being discouraged, not expecting to be successful at it, this is where it begins. Never give up this. Never give up that freedom. to meet the world with compassion, don't give any reason to stop that.

[45:42]

Don't let anybody else, any situation in the world, anyone who's not going to change, any amount of cement, interfere with this freedom. Because that's the most profound thing we can offer the world and want for the world. Be the change that you want to see in the world. So you'll never get discouraged. Because there's always going to be more places to meet that way. Just focus on that. Not the results. Not how good you can do it. Because as soon as you look at the good, how good you'll do it, and then some people you won't be able to touch and help, and they'll continue doing what they're doing, and I failed, I'm terrible, it's hopeless. It is hopeless then, for you, if you believe that. Don't make it hopeless for yourself. Come from that beautiful place. Never give that up. Thank you. Hi, so I'm sort of new to meditating, and one of the things that you said about you'd meditate, and you'd be in the state, and then you'd go about your day, and you'd be out of it.

[46:56]

How do you bring yourself back, or how do you stay in that state throughout the course of the day? What do you do? It's a very good question. And I think the first thing I would say is having that question is really good. Have that question all the time. Almost all the time. Because having the question, just having the question, kind of like you have the question and then kind of open your eyes, open your heart, and see what now. how do I do this now? If you ask the question, how do I do it now? You're halfway there. You're here. You're in the present. Your awareness is coming into this moment. And if you keep doing that regularly, you'll change. So it's a great question. Stay close to it. That's one thing. The other is... is...

[48:01]

If you have this experience of meditation, that's good for you. You feel something, somehow you're healthier, you're calmer, you're more peaceful, something beneficial, that you feel more integrity, whatever it might be, freer. Become a student of how you lose it. So you might want to come out of meditation a little bit slowly. Give yourself some time, 15, 20 minutes, at the end of a meditation session. And notice when you get caught in the usual things, when you start speeding up, when you start wanting something, complaining about something, having averse to something, getting stressed. So when you start there and losing it, stop and take a good look at what happened. Why did I give up my peace for this? Is this really something to give up? What's more important? whatever you're touching into in meditation? Or is it more important to be annoyed with the other drivers when you're driving to work?

[49:07]

Obviously the second, right? Does that give you two ideas? Is there anything you say, like chant in your mind throughout the course of the day to kind of... You could. I don't chant. What I really like is sometimes to use individual words. that kind of bring me into the present in an open way. So there are a few that I've worked. I really like the word yes. So just, oh, yes. And that's like, I'm not improving everything. It's not like a yes, I approve. It's like a yes to being here. Yes. And I kind of like, I kind of wake up a little bit. Oh, I'm here. Yes. So I love that. Sometimes I use the word what? What? Because a big part of this is to be present for what is. Now, a chant, like a mantra, might help you stay calm.

[50:11]

And that's nice. But being awake is nicer than being calm. So like a year or two ago, I was taking a class on comparative religion, and we had a whole section on Buddhism, of course, and they were talking about this idea of walking meditation. Like as you walk, you kind of focus on what your body is doing and you're breathing. And a lot of this talk is about the idea of just sitting. Do you see value in the idea of moving meditation or walking meditation? Oh, yes. There are what's called four dignified postures. we're doing this practice. And then everything in between. So there's no specific posture you have to do this practice in.

[51:14]

You can do it in any posture at all, which is important to do because there's all kinds of limited, all kinds of unique bodies that people have. And not everyone can sit in full lotus and sit this way, kind of upright like this. And so it's very important not to set up this as the should, or this is how you're a good Buddhist, or something. So all kinds of postures are possible. I know people who do, only way they can meditate is lie down. So it's called four dignified postures. Walking, standing, sitting, and lying down. And exactly how that works for you, each one of those depends on the individual. What they have in common... is that it's an intentional posture. It's whatever posture you go into, it should not be casual. It should be intentional, a posture with which to be alert. Not alert in an anxious way, but alert in a yes way.

[52:14]

I'm here. And so that can be done in any of those postures, but you choose how to go into the posture so the posture can be a little alert. And so walking is great. And in Zen, there's walking meditation. The Japanese word is kinhin. And when there's an extended period of time for meditating, they'll meditate for like 40 minutes and then do 10 minutes of walking meditation and then 40 minutes of sitting meditation. Sometimes they alternate through the day that way. In other Buddhist traditions, they spend a lot more time doing walking meditation. Some places they do it for 45 minutes seated meditation, 45 minutes walking meditation, go back and forth. When I was in Burma, it was an hour back and forth for each one. And some people, walking meditation works better than sitting meditation, if we're allowed to say that. And so some people do a lot of walking.

[53:16]

They don't do a lot of sitting. And then sometimes there's pilgrimages, which are a form of walking meditation. And in a couple of months, six weeks, I'm doing a pilgrimage walk from a neighboring Buddhist center that's a two-day walk from Green College to walk here to Green College. They're very gracious to host us when we come for the night, and then we keep walking south the next day. So what time are we supposed to stop? One more, okay? So I have a question about really how to trust what wells up. I think I've gone to a point occasionally where you are able to observe, as you say, the thinking mind, and I'm kind of like sitting behind...

[54:22]

and the feelings and whatever is alive and you're trying to get to a deeper sense of what you're meant to do or maybe not do in the context of where you're at. And it's this question of how do you trust the right welling up feeling? Maybe it's not a discursive thought as you talk about and more of an emotion, but how do you trust that it's coming from a source of wholeness within you rather than the anxiety that made you stop in the first place? That's actually a very important question. So I want to thank you for asking it. What we're doing in a sense is learning to trust ourselves and trust our capacity and understanding what the impact is for how we live and what we're doing. And if you're just sitting doing this kind of practice and the fear wells up and you feel like, you know, this fear, I'm present for it, it's getting stronger and stronger, then probably it's not wise to keep sitting that way.

[55:39]

And so then something else is needed. And this is sometimes why it's useful to talk to a teacher so that those things which are difficult to be present for There can be some kind of guidance and support about how to be with them. And one of the things is learn to stop. This is too much, and this is not the time for it. Maybe tomorrow, maybe another time. Maybe I need to learn something else. Maybe I need to learn that when I start getting afraid, that I can pull out of it rather than going into it. And if I have confidence that I can pull out of it any way I can, even fantasize, whatever it takes, then maybe I feel a little bit safer to go into the fear next time it comes, just a little bit further, a little bit further. And with time, it sometimes takes a long time to learn to feel safe while being afraid. And then that someday you can do a remarkable thing

[56:44]

And that is, you can help your fear feel safe. Your job is to give safety to your fear. And that's something most people don't do. So is that the answer well enough? Interesting enough? Yeah. You want to ask a little bit more so I can be more... meet you more directly? I guess I'm just curious what it feels like within you. When you know the certainty Maybe I have to just experience that for myself. I mean, there is no way at all to transfer that experience for one week to another. Well, that's music to my ears when you'd say, I have to experience this for myself. But it can be quite difficult. And so sometimes it's good to be a company, to have someone who's with you, like a teacher or a friend or a community.

[57:47]

So it's easier to do this practice with the difficult states we have, difficult pains, sufferings we have. So, yes, you have to know it for yourself, but you might want to consider having friends on the path with you. Thank you. So thank you all very much. So I think what we can do, we're going to do a closing chant, and then I'm going to leave, and probably you can, we'll explain this, Those of you who'd like, there's going to be tea outside here. And I'll come and join you for the tea. And I thank you very much for being here. Thank you for listening to this podcast offered by the San Francisco Zen Center. Our programs are made possible by the donations we receive. Please help us to continue to realize and actualize the practice of giving by offering your financial support. For more information, visit sfzc.org and click Giving.

[58:54]

May we fully enjoy the Dharma.

[58:58]

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