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. last night when I was offering some encouraging words I came out with that phrase by Basso this very mindless Buddha so there is a music on that this morning it reminded me of this poem and I won't like to be calm I guess Shimas Hini is on vacation

[01:15]

A few days ago, when leaves were rushing by the windows, I took this feeling I have towards the world, this mix of love and fear, and carved a scale model of it out of a block of balsa wood. Balsa wood, those of you who don't know, it's a very light, airy wood, so it's very easy to cut. And carved a scale model of it out of a block of balsa wood. something you'd find in any reputable hobby store. I used to set knives that would be very alarming, shockingly dreadful in the hands of the wrong person, especially if they had you strapped to a chair. But in my hands, under a lamp, they allowed me to express exactly the way I feel towards people and things. I did not smoke a cigarette while I worked or sip a glass of ginger ale as another might, I just worked, shaving away, like Michelangelo, all the wood that was not my lust or apprehension.

[02:30]

When I'd finished, when I'd gone as far as the knives would allow me to go, I'd placed my attitude toward the world on a lace tablecloth. A thing so light, so delicate and airy, I could think of nothing to do but to sit down in a chair and feel like the happiest shell on the beach. The happiest, happiest in town. Tomorrow I'll get busy on another scale model, this time of my childhood, which I will fashion also for balsam, being careful to keep the blades from flying out of control as they slice the soft cube of wood. being careful not to draw any blood. Then on Sunday, I'll go to the park, carrying the fragile thing under my arm and set it on the smooth surface of the oval pond. And while the boys are sealing their boats, running along the water's edge with their long sticks, oblivious to the cries of their guardians, I will stand off to one side and watch my childhood.

[03:43]

That small vessel of wonder and cruelty being blown away by sudden unexpected gusts. This very mind is Buddha. to deny the angst and strung of our lives. I was also thinking of a poem by Rokey, but his is much darker. He doesn't feel obliged to offer a little levity and humor the way Billy Collins does. But in the midst of all that, Sushin brings up the images, the memories, the triumphs and the failures, the yearnings and the resentments.

[05:07]

How is it that spacious, lighter disposition can arise. Is that the goal? Is that what happens if you do it right and the absence of that is the punishment for doing it wrong? Not exactly. And yet there's something to be discovered, to be realized, but not be caught up in the stories, the tried and true stories of our life. And sometimes they appear as just a rerun.

[06:17]

Let's play that golden oldie again. And sometimes they appear as a modern adaptation. The disposition, the emotion, the interplay is the same. We've just, with our genius, our theatrical genius, discovered new characters and a new situation. And then as we sit, and very much this concerns citta, citta consciousness, this mind that as one of its determined agendas, the responsibility for figuring out our life and for setting sail on that oval pond in an appropriate manner.

[07:24]

But there's what's above the water and there's what's below the water. the known and unknown emotions that are embodied, that speak of how that life has impacted, how it has ingrained itself, how it has imprinted itself in our being. is it that we facilitate that involvement do we establish an attentiveness that enables steering clear of such ruminations

[08:40]

Do we sit with the directed attention that establishes, if you remember, in the distant past I was talking about two kinds of energy. The energy that arises with directed attention, directed engagement in what is. And the energy that arises with receptive attention, that sense of flow, that sense of let it come, let it go. It's just intervening. Is that the challenge, the task? of Shashin. So as we engage more intimately the workings of Shashin, and more particularly we engage the workings of mind and body and breath, we can attend to how these questions come alive

[10:15]

as ways to explore what's going on. In Vaso's story, this very much is Buddha, which apparently for most of his life he used as his teaching. predicated by a seminal discussion he had with his teacher, Nagaku. And the story goes something like this. Vasco is doing zazen. And Nagaku comes and asks him, what are you doing? And he said, I'm sitting to become a Buddha. And Nagaku says, oh really? that's polishing a tile.

[11:17]

And then Basso says to Nankaku, well, what are you doing? He says, well, I'm polishing a tile to Mikramur. And then, ah. So, obviously, a commentary on my doing this to attain that. Directed effort for the desired outcome And then Basav says, well, what should I do? And then they have an interesting exchange, covering many of those questions I just mentioned. And then for each of us, as we intersashina,

[12:19]

to let this aspect of citta keep examining refining our effort how easily and readily within our effort we can say this kind of connection to the breath this kind of experience of the spine This sense of settled ease. When it's present, when any of those or all of those are present, we're doing it right. When they're absent, we're doing it wrong. And in some ways, you know, it's wonderfully convenient. You know what you're supposed to be doing, and you have the clear reference, and you can get busy doing it.

[13:29]

In your diligence, you discover the applied effort that helps bring about that consequence. And here's the subtlety of our practice. It's not that those characteristics are irrelevant. It's not that they don't enable, facilitate awakening. It's that when they become a goal in themselves, they're a deviation. They are in the service of awakening. And so this manifests in how we practice through directed attention, receptive attention.

[14:39]

The directed attention stimulates something. In response to Bassett's question, Nangaku says, well, if you put a cart and a horse and you want it to go, do you beat the cart or do you beat the horse? And of course, we all know the right answer is you beat the horse. But when Dogen talks about that, He says, well, you beat them both. Dogen's wonderful chitta, you know, the questions everything, even the obvious right answer. And in his answer, he's talking about the mind.

[15:50]

and the body the body is the card the mind is the force when you want to stimulate the process of practice stir up the intention stir up the attention stir up the diligent effort stir up the clarity and the noticing and acknowledging and experiencing with all of that's an embodied practice and the body Oh, that we could take the heritage, the after-effects of our history and turn them into, you know, a model ship and severed off on a plane.

[17:10]

Yeah. Wonderfully and awfully, it has become embodied. And as we sit, we feel the enlightenment of our heritage. And the directed, diligent effort, it stables, you know, that Japanese word, jiriki, it stimulates an aliveness, an energy, in its own workings, not because of the designs of our thoughts, stimulates an alignment, both physically and beyond the physical. It stimulates the alignment of attentiveness and willingness and diligence

[18:20]

And they are embodied. So Dogen says, well, we pride the culture. We stimulate the culture. And of course, we do this not in the service of a particular goal, but as a process of facilitating something that goes beyond our efforts. And this is where the embodiment of our experience becomes helpful. Because inasmuch as citta is facilitating our directed effort, that embodied experience that goes beyond our thinking offers us a teaching on how to be, not just how to be embodied,

[19:56]

but how to be present beyond thinking, beyond the world as we put it together. And very challengingly, often this expression, this experience of embodiment is accompanied by discomfort. Not always. And that's a very helpful and informative thing to notice and acknowledge. But in that discomfort, we can watch the play of how discomfort attracts its own version of distress and aversion.

[20:57]

I mean, I doubt if there's anyone in this room that hasn't studied this carefully as they sat and their knees were hurting and they thought, I have to move, I have to move. And then they exhaled one more time and they had this space to make another inhale before moving. almost crude as that is and the ferocious taskmaster that it is there's a lot of learning that can happen there in that practice what is it to not add the secondary distress and aversion to discomfort what is it to not insist that the mind and the body contract would actually allow them to soften.

[22:13]

In what we've learned in working with our knees, our hips, our shoulders, our back, wherever that occurs in the body, Can we learn something that can apply to any expression of physical or emotional or mental discomfort? Can we learn something about release? are the questions, the inquiries, the explorations, as we immerse more in Sushi. And we see that that boat of inquiries seals close to the ship of concentration in Samadhi.

[23:20]

that even now discomfort might be close by or very present. The diligence of the effort facilitates its own concentration. And we start to see this subtle intrigue how concentration and distress are not at opposite sides of the room. They're actually koikos. And one of the great teachings that affords us is that this ordinary mind, as we call it, everyday mind, with its preoccupations, most of them stimulated by

[24:27]

yearning and aversion and confusion when there isn't a distrust contraction and agitation around it it can be quite close to worse i don't know much about billy collins but i've often thought that He was an easily distressed person. His poetry is so beautifully light and humorous, and he can take the most delicate and difficult of human conditions and describe it in a way that lets you exhale. Yes indeed.

[25:28]

I had a childhood. I've had a life. Yes. And oh that I could make a toy ship out of it and sail it off. Such ease. such willingness to be what we are not because it has become shiny and perfect but because it is what is and what's really the point of arguing with it or resenting it such a disposition is not that we enter some pure realm of existence far from the person that we are it's in the middle of the person that we are we explore the discomfort we explore the contraction the agitation and in that exploration

[26:49]

Something's realized. In some ways, we could say it's a hard one. Some of the images in Zen are ferocious. The diligence of practice of meeting what is One in me says, traps you in a corner with no way out. Nonsense says, it leaves you confronting a cliff a mile high and a hundred miles wide. It obliges us to experience it just as it is.

[27:55]

in our reluctance, does us this wonderful service of always recreating itself. Later. Tomorrow. When I feel a little bit more optimistic, diligent, confident. When my knees hurt less. Or whatever. a cup of coffee or a cigarette or at least after we've done outside kicking and you get becoming closely attentive to those so-called difficult moments

[29:03]

and not contracting or when we contract letting contraction be this very mind that's Buddha not compiling what is happening with likes and dislikes that distract us from experiencing it. You know, and this technique, I've been trying to sell for no price. Where could we get a better deal? letting the breath breathe the body on the inhale and of course its close cousin is extending the exhale we let go and we let happen extending the exhale pausing the

[30:37]

letting the breath breathe the body is more accessible. Because it's very helpful. Maybe you could even say essential. But let's not go that far. It's very helpful that the body is starting to discover release of contractions. Because in extending the exhale, there's something purposeful happening. And purposeful tends towards control. So, in extending the exhale without tightening the body or the mind. And then in the pause, the transition. And in the pause, something can be discovered.

[31:43]

Shifting from doing to allowing. How is that in the mind? How is that in the effort? How is that in the body? How is that in the breath? Shifting from doing to allowing. And the wonderful thing about extending the exhale, your body wants to breathe in. Even if your mind forgets, what's next? Then what do you do? I know something's supposed to happen now. When does it turn out? Your body can take over. And this body, this natural reflex it's in the territory of Tridaya this heart consciousness this fundamental being this embodied being of human existence

[33:04]

And as we engage this embodied being of human existence, we engage the embodied history of what we are. But we also engage the embodied history of human being, the embodied history of lungs and heart and abdomen and spine and the breath and the energy that flows through. We start to engage something beyond words and ideas, beyond notions of what good practice is and what bad practice is.

[34:24]

And this grass tiles and pebbles mind, that's the term that comes up. consciousness, this grass pebbles, consciousness, it holds the embodied human life with its deep-seated emotions. More primitive than what the mind can offer you in exposition of And as I've been saying, it's like digestion. It's an intrinsic part of our human existence.

[35:35]

Can our mind turn it on and off? But actually, in our agitation and distress, and in our relaxation, we can stimulate it, but we can't take control. Similarly, as we embody being, holding the embodied human life, in each breath and exploration and involvement, And this we can start to carry with us. And this diligence that we like sitting with our painful knees, our back, our shoulders or whatever, we can start to discover that that diligence wonderfully we can bring to the placenta.

[36:59]

body doesn't have to be hurting to be fully experienced for what it is then actually experiencing the body when it's a state of ease is quite literally a delight as we start to let the breath breathe the body it invites it invites a flow and that invites an energy of being that has positive pleasant qualities now of course you can set that up as a goal and make that the target you're firing the arrows of your directed attention at and it's interesting it's not beyond our capacity and yet in that it misses a key element of our practice

[38:28]

Awakening is not what we think it is. Awakening, thank goodness, is not confined by what we think it is or think it isn't. The directed attention opens to receptive attention. And that receives, and in the process of receiving, there's an integration. but I'll come back to that at another time. In this directive and then receptive attention, the mind is not caught up in making a certain thing happen or not happen. So always to say, this very mind is Buddha.

[39:40]

And even though in the course of your practice, difficult and unpleasant may arise, they're not distant from those moments of awareness. that illuminate presence. It looks like we're going to get lunch again today. just to say try not to let citta speak with authority around good and bad practice try not to let citta formulate definite notions of what should happen and what shouldn't happen doesn't mean don't be diligent diligence

[41:11]

is a great resource. It doesn't mean don't engage directed attention. Engage directed attention, but don't fixate on desired outcome. And sail close to discomfort. Scary as that might seem. Unpleasant. that might seem and don't neglect the moments of ease bring to them the same attention you bring to the moments where your knees are killing you feel the warmth of the sun on your back Feel the ease and spaciousness of the mind that in that moment has no particular agenda.

[42:26]

It's just appreciating the quality of the light, the breeze, the physicality of walking. This is just as vital, as informative, as sitting with the sore knees, or back, or hips, or shoulders, or mind. This spirit of mind is Buddha. Well, it's just simply saying, attend to what's happening.

[43:28]

In how it is right now. Not so you can get busy changing it. And what will that produce? endless expressions of being. All of them arising out of the causes and conditions that have come into play in that experience. And this is what brightens the mind. When our practice becomes mechanical, hard not to get distracted for some line of thinking to slip in. When our practice becomes mechanical, it's hard not sometimes to let the mind sink into a kind of fogginess.

[44:43]

But to keep it attentive to the constant arising keep it spacious in that way it brightens the mind it keeps it attentive and stimulated and of course the balancing factor is settled and non-grasping so settled and non-grasping attentive and stimulated We go around holding those two hands of thought. No, we just experience the moment. So thoroughly, we have no idea about it. It just is what happens. A few days ago, when leaves were rushing by the windows, I took this feeling I have towards the world, this mix of love and fear, and carved a scale model of it out of a block of balsa wood, something you can find at any reputable hobby store.

[46:10]

I used a set of knives that would be very alarming, horrifying, shocking, dreadful in the hands of the wrong person, especially if he had just strapped to a chair. But in my hands, under a lamp. They allowed me to express exactly the way I feel towards people and things. I did not smoke a cigarette while I worked or sip a glass of ginger ale with ice, as another might. I just worked, shaving away like Michelangelo, all the wood that was not my lust and apprehension. When it finished, When I had gone as far as the miles would allow me to go, I placed my attitude towards the world on a lace tablecloth. A thing so light, so delicate and early, I could think of nothing to do but sit down in a chair and feed what the happiest shell on the beach.

[47:13]

The happiest hobbyist in town. Tomorrow, I'll get busy on another scale model. This time, of my childhood, which I will fashion also for balsa, being careful to keep the blades from flying out of control as they slice through the soft kibble wood, being careful not to draw any blood. Then on Sunday, I'll go to the park, carrying the fragile thing under my arm and set it on the smooth surface, running along the water's edge with the long sticks, oblivious to the cries of their guardians. I will stand off to the side and watch my childhood, that small vessel of wonder and cruelty being blown away by sudden unexpected gusts.

[48:16]

It's that simple. A human life I call me. How utterly curious. I take it so desperately serious. And have this deep ingrained impulse to asserted on every possible occasion. What am I hoping for? What is it to see it in its full array? Rather than be trapped by it and tripped up by it, rather than struggle with its shadows in unfathomed depths.

[49:29]

Just this moment. Here it is. Its own version of Buddha. 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, visit sfcc.org and click Giving.

[50:02]

@Transcribed_UNK
@Text_v005
@Score_93.95