Thank you. Amazing. Can you turn it down a little? How amazing. Just yesterday, we were in a different world, sitting in the same place, but surrounded by raucous workers doing stuff, making lots of noise in their doing.

[03:43]

the door, close the window. How will we create and preserve our precious moments of mindfulness? And now look at it. A wet Sunday morning in the suburbs of Seattle. How did that happen? Young man says, every day is a good day. I would add, do your best. Don't get sloppy. And try not to get uptight either. machine, it's an interesting inflection point often.

[05:04]

Actually, every moment in machine is an interesting inflection point. You know, I'm going to persist with Anapanasati. You know, I don't really know the difference between Anapanasati and Zen. I think over the years, the decades, it sort of blended together for me. And whether or not... They seem to you the admonitions or the guidance of Anapanasati, mindfulness of breathing.

[06:09]

Whether or not the particulars seem to fit what you consider to be your practice. I would encourage you to kind of hear the sentiment. rises from them. You know, there is a way that we could say the many aspects of our practice, the many methodologies of our practice are inviting us to take it to heart, you know, take practice to heart. suddenly drop ourselves into shishin and be this deeply concentrated energetic free being doesn't mean we won't have moments like that just means that whether we like it or not

[07:29]

We can't leave the stuff of our being at the door. We bring it in. And one of the great gifts of our practice, however you construe it, this path of liberation and awakening, one of the great gifts is that it can apply to whatever methodology we adopt, and it can apply to whatever state of mind and heart that arise. In the Chinese, The word for mindfulness or awareness, as I've been calling it, has two parts to it.

[08:37]

And the first part is of the kanji character. First part is awareness. And then underneath it, shin, which means heart-mind. That combination of our heart and our head that expresses the whole of who we are. Can we take it to heart? Can the heartfulness resonate with the way our mind is working? Can we discover how to have the heart and mind harmonize?

[09:43]

How to have the heart and mind loosen up their preoccupation with the issues and dramas and preferences and concerns. that arise for us. Can we forgive ourselves for getting distracted in Zazen? Can we have the courage to open up and fully feel some of our deep emotions? We take an admonition like every day is a good day. And can we start to taste and feel within it a kind of hopefulness that also has the capacity to commit, the capacity to stay in touch with what's going on,

[11:03]

And the capacity to meet it with the mind and heart of practice. To invite it into awareness. I would suggest to you, this is the fundamental proposition in a practice like this. just like this being one that's enhancing awareness of all that arises. That's cultivating the capacity to not only see it as a construct, but also to see the particulars of the construct, and also to see how to be skillful and compassionate with it.

[12:12]

In some ways, it's quite a straightforward proposition. Can the mind hold that proposition and invite it To drop down. And down. Into our being. And we connect to it. In one of his fascicles. Dogen Zenji. He. He. He started off by saying. There's three minds. And the first one was chitta, which is our usual discerning mind. That constructs, remembers, associates.

[13:19]

Oh, this is like a rainy day in Seattle. You know, I haven't never been to Seattle. somehow that's what my mind's created i mean a mind is amazing thing to have or maybe to be more honest about it that has us you know constructs the self and then the second is pradaya Take it to heart. Immersing body and mind deeply in the way. As we remind ourselves in a heartfelt way.

[14:29]

This is what I want to be doing. I don't like all the details of it. And I don't like some of the parts of me that come into awareness. But this is what I want to be doing. Not just as an expression of what I want and what I don't want, but as an expression of something deeper. Something that we usually call vow. In some ways, you know, vow can be self-righteous. In some ways, vow can be a determined insistence. But that vow, that's an invitation.

[15:40]

The merciful ocean. Of Buddha's way. That kind of vow. It fully aligns. With the part of you. That doesn't want to stay. Trapped in suffering. And struggling. The part of you. doesn't want to, doesn't want to cause harm. The part of you that wants to put forward what brings the best out of everyone. That kind of merciful ocean.

[16:44]

vow, it feels like it's nourishing. Like something in us is being nourished. Oh, yeah. To live like that. To be like that. To contribute that to our collective well-being. When I was a monk in Thailand, first thing I was taught was, whoever you look at, whatever you look at, think, this person, this object will fall apart, will disintegrate, will cease to exist.

[18:04]

And then to accompany that, each day we would have a slideshow on the decomposition of the human body. I don't know if what I'm saying now, in contrast to that, it's... it is um somehow when i was confronted with that approach like impermanence as a bitter pill you have to take if you want to wake up when i was confronted with that um in some ways it resonated with the kind of uh

[19:11]

original sin of the tradition I grew up in. But over the years, I've persuaded myself that the bodhisattva vow is asking us to awaken to the potential, to the capacity, to the innate ability So, that's what I'm trying to present. And maybe for you, loathsomeness of the body and contemplating the stages of decay, it would be a skillful practice. what makes sense to me at this point in time.

[20:20]

That way in which we can identify the propositions of chitta, mind. Not to say, and of course I'm right. But also not to say, and of course This is who we are. This is what we are. And it invites us into a different relationship to the proposition of practice, and the proposition of conditioned self. The image I offered yesterday was something like this, that we have a very, very strong tendency to construct a version of reality.

[21:42]

that we engage that version of reality energetically in terms of what we want and what we don't want. There are very strong influences on how we're engaging the experience of reality. then yesterday I was saying, and awareness, it sort of loosens up our narrative. You know, one long poem that starts, maybe it starts wordlessly the moment we're born.

[22:47]

the mucus from our lungs and let out a good yell the narrative like one long free-form poem of being alive here's how it is of equanimity. This is what it is to be a human being. This is what it is to be me. I was born where I was born. I had the developmental experiences that I had. I had all the influences and acculturations that have shaped

[23:53]

me, shaped my preferences, my self-assence, and marvelously have brought me to the practice of waking up. As we come to this point in Shishina, think that the third day of Shashin is kind of like the sweet spot. You know, the end is so far away that there's no point in even trying to count how many days before it happens. But we're deep enough into it that we're starting to feel

[24:58]

relevance and appropriateness of practice. How wonderful to have glimpses and tastes of liberation. How wonderful to have the mind and heart be marinated in the construct of Shashin. Where each event is inviting us back into awareness. Where each event is inviting us to forget the self and be actualized by the myriad things. employing and enjoying Samadhi.

[26:06]

And Dogen Zenji said, this is the teaching of all the Buddhas and ancestors. And I just realized I never got to the third mind. Third mind is Vriddaya. Vriddaya. And it means knowing, but not knowing that the mind knows, but knowing that arises from experiencing. That's what Shashina offers us. have the experiences that can deeply inform this human life, this shared human life, this shared interbeing with all life.

[27:16]

That even though it's not possible for it to know all the causes and conditions that bring any particular moment into being, Still, we can tap into something in this direct experiencing. We can directly experience the body. This is what the first quartet of Anapanasati is suggesting. yesterday I was calling it psychosomatic being, then maybe Dogen Zenji is saying, yes, there is citta, there is hriddaya, but there's also vriddha.

[28:23]

Interestingly, in his fascicles, Dogen will equate it to walls, tiles, pebbles. And he has a few other inanimate objects in there too. This way of getting in touch with experiencing. experience the body. We can experience the breath. We can experience the constructs that come up in our mind. We can experience when some psychologically significant event comes into being. Often

[29:38]

It has a history. Can we remind ourselves that experiencing what has arisen is the central theme of our practice of awareness rather than altering the content of what has arisen? it's an easy notion to grasp but experientially given our long history with wanting to have happen and wanting to stop happening it's almost like we can't help but try to fix what we've just become aware of whether fixing it means

[30:46]

Have more of it or fixing it means separating from it. Have less of it. To study the way is to study the self. Sometimes. the early suttas will say something like, and that's the whole story. Sometimes the early suttas will say, Chakyamuni said, I only have two teachings, the nature of suffering and the path beyond suffering. remind ourselves that the fundamental proposition, while it embraces everything, it also has a simple disposition.

[32:13]

And Anapanasati says, When we start to engage the human condition through tapping into the psychosomatic being, tapping into the energies of it, tapping into the mental activity of it, tapping into the emotions of it, Tapping into how that energy. Is directed. As we do that. We start to make more sense. To ourselves. Oh. Well if that's the underlying feeling. It's not at all surprising.

[33:17]

That I keep. repeating that kind of memory. Or I persist with that attitude or judgment. So the core experiencing helps us to loosen up. It enhances our capacity to attend to it. And then in an amazing, yesterday I said, outrageous, in an amazing and outrageous way, it stimulates a kind of joy in the human condition. of it as the joy of possibility.

[34:24]

But sometimes the weight of our narrative and all its insistence and all the things it's afraid of and all the things it says, I will never be happy until this happens, until I get this. And as we crack open the solidity of that world and some things allowed to loosen up possibility, young man says, every day is a good day. Where there's the blatant signs of a chipper, where there's this subtle pitter-patter of raindrops.

[35:35]

There was a famous Thiravadan teacher, Thai teacher, and he used to referred to his monks, and he would say, how's the weather? And they'd learn to say, it's bright and sunny, it's stormy. So this time in Shashin, Maybe without our even noticing, there is a growing capacity to attend to the moment. There's a growing capacity to remind ourselves of our vow.

[36:56]

And a growing capacity To respond to our vow. It's not that. You know. The drama. Of our narrative. Has disappeared. It's more that. It's not. So thoroughly. Ingrained. And in charge. Of what's happening. to punctuate it with moments of direct experiencing. To hear the subtle hum of the air purifier. The splashing sign of car wheels on the wet pavement.

[38:03]

down the hall not because we're going somewhere but because we're walking down the hall it's itself we can start to discover that each activity can be itself Panapanasati says, that invites a steadying, a settling. And that invites a kind of rising spirit, a rising joy. so much that we're deliriously happy, but more that the moments of foreboding or deep concern, they're not so authoritative.

[39:41]

Yeah. Moments of deep concern. There they are. Doesn't every good poem have moments of deep concern? But the possibility, the potentiality of immersing body and mind deeply in the way, awakening true mind. For each of us to inquire. And I would say. Inquire. With a deep trust. In your own vow. Inquire in a way. That invites.

[40:48]

An okayness. My notion is something like this, that each personality, each structured psychological significance takes on a unique character within each one of us. And then each one of us is invited to explore that for ourselves. say loosening up stay steady stay constant with the basics of practice no matter how many times your mind and emotions race off into some drama or dread

[42:14]

You know, that you bring. You bring this steady commitment to practicing. Inviting something to loosen. Inviting something to lighten. Not as an act of will, but just as a beautiful byproduct. of doing the basic practice. No, if we do the basic practice, all this just comes forward, whether we recognize it or not. And Dogen Zenji, in Hatsu Buddha Shin, one of his fascicles, said that citta is an important ingredient in that process i would translate it as the vow the intention not so much how you articulate it more when it drops down in

[43:46]

of being heartfelt. As you do the meal chant, as you do the rope chant, as you pause and let the inhale happen, as you notice something arising within you that's tight and hard. And you offer forgiveness. In many ways, vow is an act of improvisation. You know, what's arising? What is it to meet it fully?

[44:46]

May our intention be set in place. Thank you very much.

[48:28]

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