This podcast is offered by the San Francisco Zen Center on the web at www.sfzc.org. Our public programs are made possible by donations from people like you. Summary presentation about the workshop that I'm teaching right now called The Spirit of Practice. And then open it up to questions. And I hope that the summary I give will sort of give you, set the stage for how we're addressing that subject in the workshop. For many years I've taught it with Brother David Steinberg last and Each year, we conjure up a new thing.

[01:02]

And then the next year would come and we'd build something entirely different. At the age of 90, he decided that coming from us to us, how it was a little idyllist. So he'd carry it from this foot truck. As some of you know, Father Ciprian, who is the abbot of a new commodity monastery near Big Sur, near Aslan in Big Sur, was supposed to come. About one of the monks, every of the monks that I fell over, and he just had a great pocket. And as Ian turned out bleeding, I had to drill into his vein, and he thinks he's not looking good. And Father Sepulveda didn't think it was proper time that we, well, things were so kind of, hmm.

[02:05]

And all that happened just the night before. It was Sunday night in Washington, Monday. But in the Zen world, the notion is a doubt of what's happened. I've tried to do that. I'm originally thinking of the title, The Spirit of Practice. Looking at the demographics of spirituality in America now, Only 18 or so percent of people say they are a dedicated practitioner within a single condition.

[03:14]

And interestingly, about 80% or more say they believe in God and give themselves a license to define what that term means. Considering having taught this workshop, I think about 14, 15 times, noticing that almost all of the participants have a dedicated practice that includes practices from more than one tradition. It's what is that common thread that connects the different practices for each person. In a way, it's a valuable and pertinent question.

[04:14]

Because if any one of us just started skipping around a little bit and a little bit and putting it together to our own preferences, we can end up missing one of the valuable aspects of practice, which is you go deep, you know, maybe you catch something that asks you to go away on, just what you want to hear, what you approve of, and discover a deeper, wider, and more engaged in your life for living practice. All those attributes come from a thorough dedication. So then it becomes a pertinent question to ask, well, what is the common spirit that we stay true to as we engage from different opinions?

[05:25]

And this is, in this workshop, in a whole variety of ways we've tried to explore And this year, I offered these terms I learned from Christianity, in particular, Catholicism. And one is, although I don't think they're exclusive within Christianity to Catholicism, one is vocation. I call it a vocation. something in us that draws us to engage in a dedicated way to spirituality. And then the other term is formation. That when we engage in it, it has effect.

[06:26]

Hopefully, it stirs up within us The wisdom and compassion, it makes evident for us the integrity of being. It's intrinsic to spiritual practice. It's just our simple common sense. We'll say, well, for the spiritual practitioner, but you still give yourself full license to steal and cheat as lies and, you know, in an angry and aggressive way attack others. Well, just simple common sense is, well, that's absurd. You know, it is a request of integrity of an ethical relationship to yourself, to your relationships,

[07:29]

to all beings. And then closely related to that, a way of taking the insights we've had, the teachings that we find to be true, and they don't just formal teachings that we've read in the Bible or the Zen text that we've lived through our practice. Taking that and letting them become part of how we live our lives. This is how we relate to others as an expression of these teachings. We live in a way, expresses the wisdom and compassion of what we discovered through our practice.

[08:44]

And then it brings up an interesting question. Do you need to be religious? Do you need to be within a specific religious tradition. I know earlier I was saying that many of us mix or not. I remember reading a couple years ago in the 50s when as the yoga and yoga as a spiritual tradition was being introduced to the United States. It was considered for a You know, really, you wouldn't think what companies say. Now, I would say most of us, most people in America, and maybe this is because I live in California, they're sick of doing it all very well.

[09:58]

well, that sounds perfectly reasonable. And then, particularly in the last 10 years, mindfulness has joined yoga in that category. That has struck now. an application for Zen group in Belfast in Northern Ireland. And three years ago, the mayor of the city asked me if I would do a mindfulness workshop in the city hall. And over 200 people came. And I think it's indicative of how mindfulness, and by extension, that meditation has become, I mean, like I said, it's moving towards non-realization, to use all that term.

[11:20]

Of course, both Catholic yoga and mindfulness have attached to the spiritual dimensions, you know. You can't think, well, I do half of yoga because it gives me a good cardiovascular condition. Or you can say I do mindfulness because it's like mental hygiene. Yes. I think there's validity in that. If you go back to what I was saying earlier about it's becoming more common in our society to add these things together. I've had an ad video. I think of myself as Zen practitioner. And just so you know, Zen practitioners are a peculiar animal. In some ways we think of ourselves as Buddhists,

[12:29]

And then in some ways we don't. And in some ways we think we are practicing waking up to being full of life. That it's that wide and that universal and that that is not limited to a particular orthodoxy. It's expressed in Buddhism but it's also expressed beyond it. Some told me about five years ago that every Catholic monastery in the United States has a thing. I can't verify that person, but someone did tell me. And I do know several monasteries, I know from personal history, several monasteries do that. At the beginning, at Stagnar Basu, my co-teacher, after he'd been in his monastery for eight years, his teacher said, I think if they have it, he said, you should go and experience another spiritual tradition.

[13:43]

And I'd recommend this. And so he came here in the 60s. So that was our thing for the workshop. how to explore it. Each day we've been taking up how to explore it. One notion I offered was, excuse me, I moved rather quickly through this concept. In the Valley right now, there's probably about 70% of students who are living here as students.

[14:49]

And I think if you went around and asked each one of them to describe what they do as their Zen practice, you'd be amazed at the range of responses you could get. And I think if you went to a Christian church and asked them about the Christian practice, you would also get a living. So within the workshop, I thought, OK, rather than me sitting up front as a person who knows everything, and it's going to tell you the truth, the orthodoxy of anything. How about we listen to each other's experiments that we are having as practitioners, what it evokes within us, and learning from each other.

[16:01]

Not in a Okay, but which one of us has the right answer? But in an acumenical way, if this is about waking up and being fully human, we're all an authority on that subject. We all have personal experiences that rise to that. And what we use in the surface of that No, we're going to be strictly Zen, other parts of Buddhism, other parts of Christianity, Sucre practice, whatever. So that's what we endeavor to do. It's both marvelous and somewhat chaotic. Because... if you look carefully at each religious tradition, not only do they have the particular rituals and ceremonies and the particular way of what I call accessing the spiritual, but they also have their own phraseology, the language, and what in Christianity they talk about

[17:37]

You can look at both of those and find an overlap. You can also find a difference. So trying to find a question that doesn't rely on, doesn't in order to try to answer in our workshop. And I hope in this. one of the questions you would ask, you have asked, is what does practice ask you? It's interesting because often we're motivated in our spiritual practice to have an agenda. Okay, I would like to meditate so my mind is not so messy I can focus more easily.

[18:41]

I would like to meditate so that my emotional distress dominates. But once you turn it around and say, what does it ask of me? What does spiritual practice ask of me? And so that we engage in that as a group. And maybe we'll... And another notion I offered was that from the perspective of formation, one aspect of spirituality is that we get in touch with Indian Christianity, you would say,

[19:45]

It is in terminology, you might say, realize the nature of what is. So there's something, maybe another kind of why you might say, get in touch with the signal. Lots of ways to explain it. But I hope you get it from those who are not trying to exclude others. I'm just offering them as an example. So there's that. Then there's what I touched on there. There's the integrity of being. There's the extending to the world. And then there is what carries that through the life.

[20:50]

Do you have a big practice? Do you have certain bills and dots in your life? The other thing that you're looking at is the notion of what do you find in starving and nourishing? In the term of being fully alive or being wholehearted, one of the things I marvel and deeply respect and appreciate in what it is, is he's a very young man, too. His enthusiasm, his intuition,

[21:53]

interest in what's going on in learning is still remarkably strong. In the years I've known him, I've marveled, I've known him since the 70s. I've watched his thinking around something as basic as what is good. watched it. I've listened to him. He'd come up with the different descriptions in response to the question. I'm marvelous. It makes it true to have an attitude about what I know. I still have watched it. What inspires

[22:55]

nourishes, what instructs. So those two things, the formation of getting in touch, the ethics, the extending into the world, and how do you do that? And then by taking your children's pulse, what inspires and nourishes my people. Let's say when your practice becomes a shield, you know, like you're dragging yourself to do, it's that something to examine. When your practice becomes rigid, wood, oh yeah, it's always like this. You just do this, and you find yourself. bored by your own woodenness.

[23:57]

The vitality of your enthusiasm, the vitality of your curiosity, is depleted in the nourishment. So even though he might say, well, isn't that a little self-centric, you know, what inspires and what nourishes me, me, me? Always it is, meaning if we're making ourselves an instrument of activity that engages the world, as this one awakens, that's offered as a gift to everyone. Not a way to define a product, Okay, like that. So, that's the preamble.

[25:06]

And I wonder if you have any comments or questions like that. And if you could say it, why do we still do that? There's a proverb in the Old Testament that says that there is more hope to a fool than there is for one who believes he is wise in his own eyes. And for a long time, even now, I see that as... giving up your own desire to please everything that your mind creates the good that your mind wants to believe it. And that then should rely on the Bible.

[26:11]

It's how I've seen it, how I do see it often. And then, within the Bible, I find things that happen in myself that are difficult to engage in. Yes. So then something happens where I become fearful of like... I become fearful that these things that are stirring up in me are wrong. Because what it says about... to not be wise in your own eyes needs to be completely significant to this. But at the same time, I also feel like I should trust what's happening within you. When there are certain things that just are very hard for me to fully believe in or fully accept within something that's telling me to accept it fully.

[27:15]

And as you said, that what you did when people mix practices, sometimes there can be one can miss a point of depth. Yes. And I'm also afraid that that could happen as well with accepting perhaps the feelings within myself that are sort of against what I have always considered the truth and the full truth. And it is, although that very last piece against, if we start right there and we say, but more particularly when I read that, doesn't resonate with my sense of practice.

[28:25]

We can move to what does resonate and practice it. Because if it's just theoretical, it's just a conceptual exercise. We have to take it in and let it be That's very cool of my practice. And then it will teach us in a full way. Are you familiar with the term rectal to be? Yeah. So it's like taking it in not just as a series of ideas. It's something that speaks deeply and touches deeply. It also can be a teaching that we think, okay, well, let me live that. Let me see how that goes.

[29:32]

It's certainly the pedagogy of Zen is such that we take it up and we engage it and we discover it with an open mind. What's the consequence of it? of engaging this, of practicing this. And then the other part is foolishness. The way I've been working with night notion in the workshop is to acknowledge our experience, as I said, you know, I am the authority on my experience. But now, when I start to draw conclusions from that, this is how it is for me, and so that for that is the answer.

[30:33]

And then anybody who agrees with me is right, and anybody who doesn't is wrong. Whereas I simply said, this is my experience to a relationship how thoroughly I can see it and open to it right now. This is a work in progress. Even when you might be killed. I want to keep it as a work in progress. You keep what we call in our tradition here, beginning it's not. We're not refining our thinking. But we're not dismissing it either. It's an attribute, you know, discernment. And even that we can't, you know, extrapolate.

[31:41]

Oh, then, that'll work for everyone. And it'll probably actually work for some other people, including you, and probably not work for someone. I wouldn't say, except mindfulness is now entering the field of mental health. And what's being discovered is mindfulness is not a good practice in certain aspects of mental health. Some aspects of mental health, it's a nice little practice. In many others, it's not. That's how I took the word thought. It's really that. Trust in your own experience and let it be just that.

[32:43]

This is my pleasure. What does practice ask of you? What does practice ask of you? Practice is asking of me to have body and mind be one. More coming out of my mind and coming into my body. I'm more with my body and devoted to activity. Seems to be knocking on that door quite a bit lately.

[33:45]

It also says be kind. First thing comes is be kind. Be kind. Thank you. Anyone else could answer that question. May I be present with whatever is arising? Whatever is arising inside and whatever is arising inside and whatever is coming forth outside. I would start to say practice asks for you to practice. To commit time and energy to it. And then

[34:47]

It's a practice. Yeah. Yeah. Practice is asking you to practice. To bring your energy, your attention, your involvement. Anyone else? He seems to be asking to give my best, but a really awkward thing about this is that if I try to give my best, I just become super rigid and kind of unable to be happy at the moment. It's kind of weird asking to give my best, but I really don't know what my best is or how I should give it. Yes. And it's perfect.

[35:51]

Practice asks me to get my best. But I notice what I do that I become rigid. And then, okay, now that I've noticed that, what does practice happen? And that's kind of, that's the liveliness of it, you know. If it becomes rigid, you know, then you just beat your head against the wall and keep doing it, and then... And then your head's all bruised. And then you say, this practice doesn't work, you know? It's stupid. But if you say, okay, this is my experience, and now what? You know? Because... It doesn't matter with our relationship to our sincerity and our dedication and how that is evoked and how it's engaged.

[36:59]

This is where she said, we should be serious, but not too serious. We should be dedicated, put the rigid part, maybe that's a little extra. But maybe there's something in you that's trying to explore. Oh, what is dedicated? It doesn't necessitate. What is that like? So often we come to our own sort of growing edge or learning edge and to preserve Trust and respect for our own process. Okay, this is not I'm feeling and I need to get it right. This is all part of a process of discovering and working.

[38:03]

And we can keep that in our mind and heart. The best might be to feel that practice is onus. For me, recently, practice is giving me the opportunity to explore situations where I feel uncomfortable and then Yeah, I look at that situation and think about ways that... It's an opportunity to self-reflect, and let's say that I should look back to as a boy, not feeling included. And I then look at situations that I participate in, that I make those that rather me feel that way.

[39:11]

So I'm sure it's like practice in the mirror. It's just happening right away. It all seems to remember that we are inevitably unavoidably subjective. And that we participate in whatever we might think, well, that's about practice, it's not about me. No. You're right, okay. And how that comes into being. So we're studying the self as we ask, what does practice ask of me? We're not just studying practice, we're studying the self

[40:14]

And we're studying how the self and practice intertwine. And again, hopefully that helps us to not become so adamant about how it feels. Okay, is that what it feels? And let me see if that's still That's convincing mind. And let me see, how would I work with that? This is beginner's mind. This is the mind of possibility. This is the mind of curiosity. Give him a minute. What nourishes you?

[41:16]

What nourishes your cactus? What inspires your cactus? Any thoughts or comments about that? I don't want to meditate. So when you say you don't like it? I don't like it. It's beautiful. Really? It's beautiful. Just put it down. We love you. Okay, but if you weren't expecting anything, so what is painful?

[42:21]

Exactly. Yeah, that's it. And I don't know. I don't have any expectations of keeping going because I'm getting this place where it's going to be like a pony ride. I don't think that's going to happen either. But I just, I don't know why at this stage in my heart it's the one thing that I seem to be doing where the pain involved in it is meaningless. And out there in the world, it was steps all stripped around. I sought to avoid the pain. I was very aware of it all the time. Now it's just inveterial to me. I just keep doing it. Big cursive. I'm a little less phrase there. If it's editorial, if the pain doesn't bother you, and then curse it? No, I mean, Kurt, that works. I'm just being served by grumbling loss.

[43:25]

I'm not at peace with it. And maybe I'm not being honest. with myself or anybody else in this room by saying I don't expect anything. To you guys, in a sense, I did come looking for a little piece of mind. Yes. All that Asia Twisted Karma is a real drag. You know, you have on top of that all my recent Twisted Karma. Yes. You know what? It's like a little reading room. And I think I may show up. So, if you read a few books, especially about Buddhism, about the underworld and entertainment and things like that, you can say, oh, yeah.

[44:30]

Meditating with a fixed goal in mind, this is, yes. But we start where we're at. And I would say with a certain kind of humility and as best we can, radical honesty. It doesn't take too much, really, to create a very accurate notion of, okay, this would be a lovable expression of practice. To just sit and let whatever happens for sure. Just watch the weather.

[45:31]

It's just that when it rains, it rains. When the sun shines, it shines. Well, we're doing a beat. And you know, in the winter, it's very cold. And you can say, well, you're all Zen monks, and you have no response to it. Yes, we do. We put on our long underwear for dry and staying warm. But in some ways, we're wearing hot. We take off our lockdown. We drop and stay cool. And you can say, what's with you guys? Didn't you ever hear up avoiding taking you too? We try not to get stuck in. We don't say, if it doesn't warm up in the winter, on repeat. We don't say If it doesn't cool off in the summer, I'm weak.

[46:33]

If you don't give me the job I want, I'm going to leave. If I get bored with the job I want, I'm not weak. If I don't get on with all the other students, I'm going to leave. I only want to talk to the students, I don't. Each time we sit, there's the ideal and there's the tendencies of our own conditioned existence. And the ideal reveals the tendency of our own existence. And they become our teacher. And how do we relate like that doesn't feel like a punishment.

[47:38]

It doesn't feel like, well I'm broken and I need to be fixed. It is a dignity and respect for who we are. Okay. That's my tendency. I remember getting up once in a very cold morning here in the winter and I walked outside and I put my little bit of food on a very cold problem. And it was a time of fear. That's the question. I wasn't going to get frostbite, because I wasn't sure. But that's what arose in my human tradition. Can we have a deep, deep patience as being a human being. And as we do that internally, the capacity to do that external, oh, well, if I'm going for this, chances are, because everybody else, the reverse is true.

[48:58]

If I'm frustrated about my own lack of perfection, usually I will project that out onto others. In fact, it's a whole lot easier to critique others like perfection and avoid paying attention to all. But the way we can do that, it starts to become nourishment. This is... what we call in Zen the path. As we follow the path, the teachings will arrive in the middle of our activity. The way you resist or the ways you click your preferences will show themselves.

[50:02]

As long as you get kite-loaded. You had something fixed, feeling it. An idea. Getting your own psychological makeup. Couldn't do it. Then hopefully you can see it. Oh. That's what's going on. crush it, but to get close to it with the benevolence. Okay. What is it to work with this benevolently? What is it to meet this skillfully and compassionately? That's our practice.

[51:06]

Each of us unfolds our own path. And then that question I offered a few minutes ago, what keeps us on that path? What nourishes us? What inspires us? What guides us? What supports us? And how do you come back? Yes. And I would suggest to you, each time you meditate, is to sit down, come back forth, remind yourself, what are we doing here again? And how do you do it? Because our human habits tend to interrupt that spacious dedication and then you substitute some conditioned preference.

[52:13]

So if you start, you remind yourself, what's this about? Okay. Thank you. We're out of time. But even so, I'm going to read this poem before we read it. Thank you. The poem says, you read this, but I'm gonna say, you hear this. You hearing this, be ready. Starting here. What do you want to remember? What do you want to remember of the last 45 minutes? As the sunlight creeps along the shining floor, what scent of old wood hovers, what softens sign, From my side shows fear. Will you ever bring a better gift for the world than the breathing respect you carry now?

[53:29]

Whenever you go right now. That you carry wherever you go right now. A breathing respect to carry wherever you go right now. I'm waiting for time to show you some better thoughts. When you turn around, start in gear. Lift this new glimpse that you find. Carry in the evening all that you want from this day. This interval you stand reading or hearing this. Keep it for life. What can anyone give you greater than now? Start in gear. right in this room, when you turn around. 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.

[54:31]

Your financial support helps us to continue to offer the Dharma. For more information, Visit sfzc.org and click Giving.

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