This podcast is offered by San Francisco's Zen Center on the web at sfcc.org. Our public programs are made possible by donations from people like you. I always think it's like a bonus to have these long, light nights. evening i'd like to talk about two words shikantaza which i think most of you have heard and the other one is a japanese word yutori he's looking to see if hero is here but he's not anyway And these words came up for me when I was listening to Wakko Shannon Hickey give her talk on last Saturday.

[01:08]

Which I find very moving. Kind of a wonderful example of living the Dharma. And those two words came up for me. I was really struck by... the way she illustrated the three phases of her life, her adult life. For those of you who weren't there, she was saying, well, first of all, she was involved in journalism, and in particular, journalism for gay rights. And then she was involved in academia. And here... There in academia, having the background she had, she experienced certain prejudices. And then becoming a hospice chaplain.

[02:19]

The great power of facing death. Early in my practice, I lived in Thailand, and I was ordained as a monk there. And my teacher would always end his talks by saying, you're going to die. Time to meditate. You're going to die. Time to meditate. But why could... She took those three aspects of her life and quite honestly and straightforwardly described the difficulties, the pain, the challenges, and how at the same time those difficulties became transformative.

[03:29]

being confronted by someone who was utterly opposed to who she was and how she was. And in that moment, feeling like we're not separate. Our views are very different, but in another more essential way, we're not separate. How does any one of us do that? How do we meet in an honest, forthright and straightforward way what life's presenting us with? And relate to it in a way that illuminates the path, that illuminates the process of liberation. that allows us to have the capacity for shikantaza.

[04:37]

In some ways, and I think it's fair to say, in the classic way of thinking about what that word means, it's a descriptor of zaza, of this style of meditation where you're just practicing awareness without any particular goal. experiencing what's happening is the essential activity. And there's a way in which we can take that notion, which primarily is relating to cross-legged sitting, and extend it to the different aspects of our life. And that's what I thought Waco was doing on Saturday. This is my history.

[05:46]

This is who I am. This is what I am. This is how I am. And that's it. And the process of Zazen, is to have that relationship to our experience. And so what I'd like to do is do a brief meditation. And I'll offer you some way of... relating to what's happening. But let me start with the poem. This poem is called Upright, and it's written by Morna Finnegan, who's a poet, who's part of the Sangha in Northern Ireland.

[06:54]

I abbreviated it some, so if you ever listen to this talk, Maura, I apologize. When body has walked so long in tension, she hardly remembers anything else. In society, clenched in her brace, her brace position can't help her. So she goes to the forest, and under the dark umbrellas of the sycamore and the chestnut, she remembers. It is her special, work, her daily medicine. She undertakes it without question. Some days, even the hard days, it's hard to believe that this is your body. Begin there. Begin here.

[07:58]

Again here, I was looking at different translations of the Phukhansa Zengi. The way is originally perfect and all-pervading. How could it be contingent upon practice or realization? The Dharma vehicle. Is free and unhindered. What need is there for some special kind of effort? I would say. Shikantase. Is the active expression. Of that. The sentiments in that paragraph. So if you could think of. If you would just, without changing anything, without trying to adopt some special state of being, just notice.

[09:18]

Notice what's happening. And in the noticing, can you remember just what noticing is, the disposition of it, the attentiveness of it? And then can you very gently bring that noticing to the body?

[10:31]

Can you discover the daily medicine of noticing the body just as it is? And you notice how the breath moves in and out of the body. Not as a task of noticing. This is just what happens. And it intermingles with the sounds.

[11:41]

Then as you just sit in that state, when a thought occurs, can you notice? Maybe you'll just notice when you've been distracted and have come back. it for. When a thought happens, you get distracted and you notice.

[13:52]

told me recently that such a simple, straightforward practice like that, their mind was too busy to engage it. And they needed a different practice. interesting proposition you know in the realm of what we do in Zazen should there be more emphasis on the breath I quoted the first couple of lines from the Fulkanza Zengi.

[16:23]

For years, it puzzled me because, you know, I was thinking about Dogen Zenji. And, you know, he went off and became a monk when he was 13. And he studied in the Tendai tradition. And in the Tendai tradition, there's... volume book on meditation, you know, and all the forms of meditation and all the ways to practice it. There's one system that lists, you know, a six-fold process. establish the awareness of the breath. There's another system within that book that lists a ninefold process.

[17:33]

And Dogen studied all of these. I read somewhere that he had the equivalent of a doctorate degree in Buddhism. by the time he was 19. And yet, when you look at Fofugan Zazengi, and, you know, there's, in some ways, there's not much detail about how to actually practice. Like when you look at the Tendai book, Okay, initiate, you know, just like it says in the Eightfold Path, you know, right perspective, right intention, you know, initiate, establish, you know, return.

[18:41]

Even in the eighth century, people got distracted. And then there's elaborate things you can do. And Dogen doesn't mention any of that. He just mentions the body. And of course, the Fukanza Zengi is called the universal recommendation. And so I've often wondered why in his seminal work, you know, This wasn't one of the early works that he wrote. He wrote this when he was 45. So he practiced quite a bit. And by that time, he was in the process of starting his own monastery. He'd been to China and felt like he met his teacher and that that teacher had imparted to him the authentic, essential way

[19:55]

to engage meditation that brings forth liberation. And how interesting that he starts by saying, nothing needs to be different from what it is. You don't need a special technique to make What's not happening, happen. And so when I was listening to Wako talk on Saturday, I thought, yes, you've had this amazing, somewhat challenging journey of your life. And now you see how to be it.

[20:58]

And the process of Zazen that Dogen's recommending is start there. Can you persuade yourself to just be in this moment? Can you just be? And then with that, to notice. You know, the English word notice has a wonderful quality to it. It has that kind of... We're noticing what's happening. Or we're noticing what's not happening. It's not intrusive as a verb. It has an element of accepting. It has an element of experiencing. And actually, Dogen took a previous Fukanzazengi, written about 140 years before he wrote his version, by a Chinese teacher, Changlu.

[22:19]

That was the basis. And it's very interesting to put them side by side, because he left out some pieces. And he added in some pieces. And this in particular, this notion of nothing special needs to happen. And you know, right in the midst of nothing special needs to happen, All the stuff of our life happens. And in particular, when we sit Zazen, it's like for almost everybody, the mind is stimulated. It's a little bit like, okay, finally, you're sitting still and you can listen. Here's what I have to complain about.

[23:23]

Here's the unexamined or unaccepted of my life. With this process of noticing the energy, of noticing how they sweep up attention and surround it with an intrigue, and sometimes We don't even, they pull us into a dream, and we don't, then we pop out of the dream, and we don't even know what the dream is about. So the subtle work of Zazen is, can we relate to this extraordinary complex,

[24:25]

of being the person we are, can we relate to it with an attentive carefulness? Can we notice? No. Rather than we have something to assert, can we be in learning mode? No. Can we pay it in a way that we're discovering what's happening for us. Even the process of getting distracted, noticing you've been distracted, and returning to awareness, it renews our vow to be present. It rediscovers what it is, to shift from being inside some intrigue and being present for it.

[25:38]

Can we attend in that purposeful way where we see the stuff that's coming up for us? And most people, When we start this process, the dream is such that it can easily take over. And what Dogen's saying in Fukanso Zengi, if you can remind yourself, if you can keep turning to this simple but profound, that bringing awareness has a power. It has the capacity to illuminate. And when we bring awareness to the body, like this poet, once we were talking,

[26:56]

And she was going through a very difficult period in her life. And she was at the beach with her five-year-old son. And she was watching him play in the waves. And she was watching the kind of simple, complete involvement he had in playing in the waves. teaching her that there's something utterly straightforward about being in the moment. And Dogen's presenting it up front as a way to say, this is the basis.

[28:01]

Even though can easily forget it. Even though we can be easily distracted from it, this is the basis. This awareness. And I would suggest to you, the challenge is twofold. How do we bring yuttori? And then also, how do we bring a kind of appreciation to it? Like this Fu in Fukan. It has a quality of appreciation.

[29:06]

as a character of spaciousness. Naomi Shihabnai told me this. She was the one that introduced me to this term, Japanese term. She was saying she was teaching in Japan, and she was teaching poetry. She's a poet. She was teaching high school students. And she was saying, she would go into the class and she'd write on the blackboard, you are living in a poem. It was just a way to stimulate the class, the participants in the class. And one of the class participants said to her, what this calls up for me is yuttori, a kind of inner and outer spaciousness.

[30:22]

Zen practice is an experiential process. And of course, we live mostly in the realm of ideas. And so naturally, almost we could say instinctively, our mind conceptualizes and thinks about the proposition. the little girl that was talking to Naomi, she was about 12 years old, and she was saying, it's like when you take the time to go somewhere, so you don't have to worry, are you going to be there on time? Maybe you go early enough to know you're going to be early, and then you can spaciously just wait for the event.

[31:37]

friend who lives mostly in Japan he's Caucasian but lives mostly in Japan and the last time he came to visit me I noticed that he came early he sat in his car until exactly the time we had agreed and then he rang the bell the little things that can, in a way, soothe us, reassure us. It's okay. I'm a little bit early, so I won't be late. Is there a way that we can engage this practice? has some way of reassuring us.

[32:51]

The mind is so intent upon its narrative. It's so intent upon its conceptualization. It's so... intent upon how it articulates reality. And then we endorse it with our feelings. We endorse it with our psychological association. then to say, well, that's all made up. I mean, it's like an assault on here we are making our best effort to be alive, and then we're being told it's all made up.

[34:01]

Can we engage that process in a tender way? Can we engage that process that has some reassurance, some compassion, so that we can learn, discover experientially how to appreciate our life. So yuttori has this quality. That's what prompted the girl in the class to say, oh, we're living in a poem. And a poem is kind of appreciation for existence. I first read Moira's poem about a little boy dancing in the waves.

[35:14]

how that was supporting her to look at, to relate to something painful and difficult in her life. To take on what was for her at that particular time, making a decision that would be very significant for her. And how do we bring a spaciousness? It's not something we figure out. It's not something we have to be clever about. It's more an affair of the heart than it is the mind.

[36:22]

that this poem was called upright. Usually we think of being upright as a demand of this is the proper way to be. This is something we should do. We should be upright. In early Buddhism, the process of liberation, the way it's talked about, it's usually associated with a sense of joy and liberation. A joyful liberation. Can we engage that moment of noticing when we notice the mind has wandered and we make the vow of being present and return to our body and our breath and awareness?

[37:58]

Can we appreciate that that's an amazingly powerful, And wonderful thing to do. Sometimes it asks a deep compassion of us. What we were caught up in was deeply challenging for us. Sometimes it's just the yoga of paying attention. how to sustain awareness. Sometimes it's courageous. If I make this decision, things are going to happen a certain way. And even though I have my perspective on it, I don't really know how it's going to be.

[39:04]

And Shikantaza says, so be it. That's the human condition. That's the nature of this ever-changing impermanence. What is it to reset time and reassure yourself? to be here. It's okay to be this body. It's okay not to know what's going to happen next. It's okay to open up to experiencing it. The great way

[40:10]

is free and unhindered. What need is there for a special effort to brush it clean? When body has walked so long in tension, she hardly remembers anything else. Society, clenched in her braced position, can't help. So she goes to the forest. Under the dark umbrellas of the sycamore and the chestnut, she remembers. It's her special work, her daily medicine. She undertakes it without question. Some days now, even the hard days. It's hard to believe this is your body.

[41:14]

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

[41:47]

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