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. Thank you so much for coming out to Greengold Farm today. All the way... here to be cold in a barn. And thanks to everyone joining online as well. I wonder for how many of you, is it your first time here at Green Gulch? Welcome. Thank you for coming. I wonder why you came. But I feel encouraged that there's something calling us.

[01:00]

There's something calling us. And how beautiful and powerful that we listen to that and give it a few hours at least. I'm not sure what you are thing calling me, but I'll give you a couple hours at least. So I wanted to start just to come into a little bit of meditation. And I know that many of you here have been sitting already for a few minutes or an hour even. But as many of you know, I've been exploring meditation practice. And in particular, I've been working with these four points of the Zazen or Zen meditation posture. So I thought maybe we could just go through them together as we settle into the room.

[02:04]

So the first is to feel our low belly center. So I often put my hand on my low belly, a little bit below my navel, and just feel the breath, invite the breath to flow all the way in and all the way out, deep down into that. that ground, that embodied center, that stability and strength. Do you all feel that? Some kind of composure and strength and solidity in your lower belly. So I start with breathing out and really letting the breath come all the way from my lower belly. And then from that ground... From that root, I've been practicing inhaling and lifting my spine, extending my spine up so that it might feel like the top of our head is supporting the sky.

[03:17]

For some of us, maybe rolling the belly forward a little bit, maybe bringing the chin in. So this is coming into the body, grounded and upright and dignified and present and ready to be alive, which we don't know what it is and we don't know what happens next. So it's good to be strong and upright. And then I've been practicing clearing the mind. clearing the mind, concentrating the mind, and trying to empty out some of the traces or leftover thought, slime, that doesn't actually need to be there. You know, if there's a thought that needs to be here now, like, well, it's hard to think of a thought that you really need to be having right now.

[04:23]

But maybe somebody has a thought that's important to be thinking now. And if so, go ahead. But it's wonderfully refreshing to just for a breath or two clear away everything that's in the mind. And we all can do this. It's not like a special skill, really. It's just that the human mind can concentrate. So maybe especially if we close our eyes, and I've been doing this thing where I bring my hand over my face, sort of like wiping the windshield. just bringing my hand down and breathing out, and just breathing out, staying with that out-breath, and just letting the mind be on that one point. Just really nothing in the mind except for the feeling of the out-breath.

[05:26]

Everything else can wait. And then, grounded, upright, clear, then opening my eyes and opening my arms and receiving the whole, and then coming into what we say the mudra, the meditation mudra. So opening my eyes, opening my arms, welcoming the whole thing, the whole wide field of... Awareness of being alive, of brightness. And maybe we can now just do that with these four breaths. So breathing out with our hand on our belly, feeling that root.

[06:30]

And breathing in, lifting our spine. Coming upright. And breathing out with our eyes closed. Just total single point concentration on the breath out. Clearing the mind. And inhaling, opening our eyes and our arms. Embracing this whole inconceivable field of light and sound and sensation. And then we just... in this brightness grounded and upright and open everything is welcome everything is alive I've really been enjoying that practice I don't know if it resonated for any of you

[07:35]

It's so simple. I guess it's just being alive. And it can feel like whatever's here is just welcome. There's no, you know, even though there's countless, impossible, crushing, terrible problems in our lives and in our world, When we practice in this way, we actually might feel that there's nothing keeping us from being fully here in our life. So I've been studying this way. When I say to be fully alive or fully, totally wholehearted in your life, really connected with the fact of your being alive, does that, do you know, have a feeling for what that, does that make sense? And if that makes sense to you, like, yeah, I think I could be completely wholeheartedly connected with my life.

[08:41]

Maybe I'll wait a few more minutes to see if this situation is good enough to give my whole being and whole heart and whole life to. Can you relate to this holding back, this little bit of holding back from my life? So, for example... I'm open to being in this Dharma talk. Not quite sure what I've gotten myself into. I'm worried it might be kind of long. I'm not sure what this guy is doing. So I'm not going to give my whole being. I'm not going to be like completely wholeheartedly myself. Quite yet. Let's give it a minute and see. Or often for me, you know, it's like, oh, I,

[10:09]

As soon as I can, and this is the wiggling, you know, in our meditation practice, for those of us who sit in meditation, there's this feeling like, I'm going to get really still in a minute. Just got to kind of sort out this shoulder thing. And then I'm going to give my whole being to this sitting. So this little bit of holding back. from our own being fully alive in the actual only life that we get for this moment. That's the only moment we get it in. But this deep habit of holding back, maybe well-earned habit, you know, a little bit of distrust to just be fully, to give myself fully alive. And we can just be fully connected, fully in what's happening, fully wholehearted in a moment of our life.

[11:10]

We can feel warmth and satisfaction and connection, intimacy with what's here. When we can give ourselves fully, be wholehearted in a moment of our life, that's the ground. You know, how do we help each other? How do we help the world? How do we support suffering beings? It really helps to be right here for them. I'm not sure what's next. I'm not sure what else there is for me to do, for you to do, but I'm pretty sure that that's the best ground is like I am here all the way. And that's where this clear mind helps a little bit and this posture of embodied centeredness and uprightness helps. So the part of the wisdom in our Zen teaching is that there's never anything that's actually in the way of our being fully present with what's here.

[12:18]

There's no kind of thing that could actually keep you from being totally present in your life. Does that make sense? Like the shoulder pain is not some kind of thing that you couldn't just be present with. Your friend being upset with you is not the kind of thing that somehow... this new kind of thing that there can't just be welcoming or presence with. Everything that can happen in life is of the nature. Because it's happening, it's already included in this being. It's already welcome here. And so we can join that. We can also welcome whatever it is. But the feeling is, I want to explore a little bit what this feeling is of, I want to welcome everything, but there's something in the way of my welcoming everything.

[13:20]

This morning, I was remembering a song, a gospel song. Maybe some of you have heard it. It's called tomorrow. It's a, It's about Jesus. That's okay. And there's some fantastic lines in this song. I won't sing it for you. I felt the holding back. Then he started singing about Jesus. And I said, I am never coming back to Green Gulch. So what if I did, you know, if I started singing about Jesus? That would feel like, it really might feel like I can't actually be present for this situation.

[14:32]

But, you know, cringe is such an interesting word because it's like I refuse to actually open and give my life fully. to this situation. I'm just going to kind of like, it's, it's not actually happening. It's so awkward and uncomfortable that it's better to just wait out. Even though, you know, what is it? 4,000 weeks. Is that right? Somebody said we have 4,000. That was a great book. 4,000 weeks. We have 4,000 weeks if we're lucky to be alive. So, but still, we think we could like cringe for a bunch of those weeks to just kind of like get to the good parts and open fully to the good parts. So the proposition in Zen practice, and I think in any spiritual way, is let's open to the whole thing. It's already opened to, it's here, it's happening. It is the brightness, actually.

[15:33]

It is our life itself. So the song says, Jesus said, here I stand. Won't you please take my hand? That's lovely. Here he is. This brightness. This life itself. This oneness with each other. This peace and intimacy and joy. This aliveness, inconceivable, boundless. ungraspable unknowable being aliveness is right here to take its hand and you said I will I will take its hand some people here and I see looking right at Josh who may be saying I will in a lay ordination ceremony coming up have a few of these ceremonies coming up where

[16:37]

The Zen students committing to this path will get some questions like, do you vow to stay present with your life no matter what happens, even after you become a Buddha? And they say, yes, I will. A very beautiful, powerful moment of saying, yeah, I get it. I'm not going to close off from my life anymore. So, and you said, I will. Just enter, just be fully alive. Tomorrow. Tomorrow, I will give my life. So it goes on like that. I will. As soon as I sort this shoulder situation, as soon as, you know, we get over this hump at work, as soon as, you know, some of this relationship stuff gets settled, As soon as I know for sure that my kid's okay, that my mom's okay, that I'm okay, then I'm like, then I'll be all here for this being alive.

[17:46]

I will tomorrow. So it's interesting, you know, it's wonderful when we can feel and know or see the thing that we think is obstructing us, the thing that we think is in the way. Like this morning for me, it was I have to give a Dharma talk. So I'm totally ready to be fully just, you know, around noon. I'll really take that up. when we can see, you know, I'm not up for welcoming this thing that's happening, but I'm up for welcoming in general. There's this expression that somebody shared that I've been sharing now and then, which is a kind of paraphrase of a Buddhist sutra, and it has a question and answer, and one of the questions that I think the Buddha asks, or one of the bodhisattvas is, is that the dharma, is that the thing that's keeping you from seeing,

[19:07]

the emptiness of everything? Is that the thing that's keeping you from welcoming everything? If any, that's a, if you, that's such a wonderful question. As soon as you say that, you know, oh, that thing that's in my way is not in my way. It's my life. Oh, is that the thing that's in the way of your life? Yeah, it really, it really is. But what is it made out of? Well, my life. But it's in the way. Feels like it's in the way. Is that the thing that's keeping you from loving everything? Is that the thing that's keeping you from opening to everything? So this is our practice is to step back and welcome whatever is here. our small mind, our kind of constricted self.

[20:14]

So it's trying to navigate through these obstacles around them to get to somewhere better. And our big mind, our, you could say, spiritual wisdom is stepping back and appreciating that whole field, that whole situation as actually what our life is. A couple of days ago, I had the chance to have a little gathering with the traditional six officers or senior staff of Green Gulch Farm. There's this old tradition of these different positions of responsibility in the temple, and that's the group of six officers or senior staff. worked diligently to practice welcoming everything and taking good care of the temple and the practice.

[21:22]

So with them, we were discussing together a short text from the Buddha. It was a kind of admonition from the Buddha to reflect on whether one's community is a deep community, Or a shallow community? A harmonious community or a divided community? I thought that's a challenging question we could ask of our community or of whatever communities or families, relationships. Is this a deep community or a shallow community? And the Buddha, you know, likes to list. So he lists lots of virtues of what the deep community would be like and no surprises. You know, all the good stuff. People would be very loving and supportive and attentive and diligent and warm and really present and caring.

[22:28]

The shallow community would have a lot of insincerity and inattention and recklessness and insensitivity. And the Buddha says, The deep community is foremost. So definitely go with the deep community. So it's sort of like, you know, these staff members of Green Gulch really could say identify with Green Gulch, really take it seriously, really kind of see it as, for many of us, a kind of aspect of our own life or our own practice. So it's sort of like if the Buddha was asking you about your own life and saying, well, do you have a deep life or a shallow life? It's kind of a tense question, right? And it's better to have a deep life. But I'm just asking, do you have a deep life or do you have a shallow life?

[23:31]

I think it's a deep life. Or I worry it's a shallow life. It's a challenging question. Are we living as fully as we can? Are we being as kind and as open and as present and as intimate and as attentive and as forgiving as we can? So, raising this text with the leaders at Green Gulch, Basically, in expressions that were deeply inspiring to me, they laughed at the Buddha, Zen students. They did not take the bait.

[24:34]

They did not say, oh no, do we have a deep life or a shallow life? They said, ha ha, Buddha, we see what you're trying to do. We won't take that juicy bait. Oh no, my life is shallow. I've got to make it deep. I want to live really deeply, but there's all this shallowness, so I've got to figure out how to get around the shallowness and push the shallowness away, and then I'm going to be deep. Tomorrow, Buddha, I'm going to start to have a deep life. They kept their posture, these mature Zen students who are taking care of this temple, stayed in their belly, intuitive wisdom, intimate with everything, embodied and upright. And their mind was clear. Their eyes were open and they said, well, I'm not sure what you mean. When it's shallow, we just welcome shallowness.

[25:37]

That's the brightness. That's our light. And when it's deep, we welcome that it's deep. And I thought, that's so deep. It really is a deep community. So this is really about our own life. We're inspired by the practice. We're inspired by this possibility of living really fully, of living deeply. And then it's easy to think that we have to get around some shallowness to find some depth. The teaching in Zen that's so clear and I think remarkable is don't do that. Just welcome. Just take this posture. Don't try to get deeper. Don't try to get away from something shallow. Don't try to get to be a better person. Don't try to get other people to be a better person. Feel your belly.

[26:38]

Know that this embodied presence is what you are. Unknowable, boundless, intimate. Be upright. Clear your mind. And welcome what's here. if what's here is I feel disconnected, I feel out of sorts, I don't feel myself, I don't feel fully alive, then this posture can welcome that. We don't have to go around it. We don't have to say, oh, feel connected. I'm supposed to feel connected and do some practice. There's lots of practices that other people do to feel connected and they're probably great. But in the Zen way, we start with just connect with the feeling of not feeling connected. Welcome that, open to that. try to do something to get this thing you don't have welcome what's here which is actually what your life is so there's this subtlety in our practice which is how do we take a posture that welcomes our life as it is without manipulating

[28:01]

life and there's based that's based on a kind of faith that this welcoming allowing being intimate being one with the life that we have is actually the way that things will deepen it's the way that will become kinder and wiser and more open by welcoming what's actually here and so we do that with this posture I just want to make one or two more points. Maybe against my better judgment. I want to talk about this point about clearing our mind, because I think it's a real entangling point for us, for meditators. In a way, you know, so I say in this four points of kind of establishing,

[29:08]

our presence and openness and stillness, that it's very helpful to clear the mind. But as soon as I say that, I feel bad. It always happens. I say, clear your mind, and then I say, oh, I wish I hadn't said that. Because clear your mind is like the thing in your mind is in the way. What I really want to say is the thing that's in your mind is just is your life and it can be welcomed. Does that make sense? I was talking to a friend recently who was going through this painful situation of heartbreak and rumination. Very familiar situation. Anybody? Heartbreak and rumination. You know, where's where's my lover now? What have I done wrong? What did they do wrong?

[30:09]

What's going to happen next? That crushing, devastating, awful feeling. That from outside, you know, when it's not you. So this is natural. This is beautiful. You're totally alive. This is welcome. This can be welcomed. It's actually like, how could you be more alive than that? you know, than in that intimacy and connection and hurt. And I felt so grateful in talking to my friend, who's also a practitioner, that we don't have the kind of practice here where we would say, okay, stop thinking about that. For one, like, good luck. What are you going to use to do that? You know, empty your mind of that stuff. so that you can be fully alive in the brightness and wonder of the present moment. I felt so glad that I didn't have to say that to be in a meditation tradition that doesn't say you have to keep your mind clear, that says, wow, sounds like that's really what you're thinking about.

[31:19]

And can you welcome it? Can you make room for that? Can you feel your belly and take care of your spine and open your eyes and heart and just feel that aliveness of that heartbreak and that rumination? So that's kind of when I say clear your mind, I have this kind of bad feeling like maybe don't clear your mind. Maybe the thing that you're thinking about, you really have to be thinking about. It's just the actual teaching is welcome. Step back and welcome this whole field as ungraspable, inconceivable, boundless life itself. And when we can clear our mind, that is often more palpable. When our mind is full of slime and gunk, the traces and shadows of thinking, as Suzuki Roshi says, then it's like harder to be here for what's happening.

[32:24]

That's all. And I've been noticing this in my practice. I'm doing this thing, trying to stay open and present without manipulating the wide field above, below, all around, light, sound, sensation, nothing to do but welcome as the ground for this unknowable responsiveness that will come from that. And then, you know, when my mind starts going for a walk, I lose that. It's not that the thought couldn't be welcomed. It's just when the thoughts are going, I lose the welcoming capacity. So I'm stuck. If I tell myself or tell someone else to clear their mind, it sounds like the thought is this kind of thing that can't be welcomed. But if we don't say clear your mind, then chances are very high that that actual feeling of welcoming will collapse.

[33:30]

So this is an old problem in Zen. They have this ambivalence and a powerful ambivalence about having an empty mind. it's very important that you have a clear, empty, open mind. Why are you trying to resist the things that are arising in your mind? So it's very confusing, and I don't know if I've helped matters, but I was just pointing out, maybe especially for some of you newer to meditation, this has really been extremely unhelpful. There's a poem, and I thought I might tell this story, but there's not time. In the Platform Sutra, early 7th century Chinese foundational Zen text, there's this poetry contest. Maybe you've heard in Zen, there's things like poetry contest. And this one poem, I'll say the poem that really guides our practice and is celebrated in this, initially celebrated in this sutra, is that the body is like the tree of awakening.

[34:37]

The mind is a mirror bright. Time and again, brush it clean. Let no dust alight. So the mind is a mirror. Look, open your eyes. The mind is a mirror. Everything that's, the light and the sound and the sensation is just reflected. It's just this brightness. There's nothing to do. There's nothing to adjust. There's nothing to deepen. It's just keep that mirror clear so that that brightness can keep reflecting. silent and still, the mirror clear, the light is just present. And we just keep brushing it. I've been picturing this very soft cloth, microfiber, and just light touch, just clear. And it's not, you know, keep the mind clear. When I say keep the mind clear, that seems like don't allow thoughts to arise. Make something not welcome.

[35:39]

which is betraying that fourth posture point of opening and welcoming whatever's here. So we say, keep the mind clear. It sounds like, okay, I'm going to do it. I'm going to keep the mind clear. Notice that, right? Keep the mind clear. You're also, there's no brightness. There's no openness, but the mind is clear. Good job. Kept it clear. You also kept yourself from being alive in this light and sound. So it's not keep the mind clear, it's let the dust fall and just keep clearing it off. Let the dust fall and just breathe it out again. As Suzuki Rishi says, you just, you know, eat the sandwich and then throw away the paper. And then eat the sandwich and then throw away the paper. You know, it's not like eat the sandwich, collect the paper. Eat the sandwich, collect the paper. You have a whole stack of paper. It's just let the dust fall and clear the dust away.

[36:42]

Just return to the bright mirror. Let the posture fall and then come back into the spine and the belly. So somebody, our ancestor, our sixth ancestor is practicing this, clearing the mind. Everything's welcome, including thought. But as soon as it lands, it's lightly wiped away. And he becomes so deeply established in this welcoming. that the thoughts aren't collapsing the posture of welcoming. The thoughts are just his life, you know? So then he shares a poem, which is, fundamentally, awakening doesn't have a tree, nor any mirror bright. Originally, there is not one thing, Where could dust alight? In other words, nothing's in the way of my life.

[37:52]

Stepping back, everything is included. There's nothing to clear away. It's all just life itself. So what are you talking about? Keeping a mirror clear and some tree? What are you talking about? It's all just alive. So it's a little bit this paradox. Once you're in that posture of upright and clear and welcoming, you feel like, I could welcome actually anything. I don't have to keep anything out. And the thoughts can come and the feelings can come. All of the suffering of everything can come and all of the joy. And it's not collapsing the posture. It's all actually welcome. And that's so profound and important. And as we study this in our actual life, walking around and working and sitting in meditation, we become more intimate with, more familiar with this kind of dynamic.

[39:02]

We're clearing the mind to support the posture that allows everything, including thought, to be welcome. So that was the thing that I shouldn't have said. and maybe has entangled your meditation practice. But I felt I should at least mention, because we have a tradition of mixed messaging around what to do with thought. Maybe I'd put it like this. If you can clear the thought, why not? Not because the thought is bad, not because the thought is in the way, but because something is here calling for your full self. for your full life. It's not like the thought is bad. I'm going to get rid of it. It's like something is happening here. That's really very special, even though my body hurts and I'm bored and I don't feel good and I'm tired. It's still like something pretty special is happening in this being alive thing. And so I want to, it's like, if we're having a friend over, it would be nice to not be thinking about some other friend while they're there.

[40:13]

Maybe you've been in a conversation like that with your friend who's thinking about their other friend while they're talking to you. I think reality is kind of like that. It's like, you know, here it stands, wanting to be intimate. And we're thinking about some other friend. So the clearing the mind isn't because something's bad or something can't be included or because we want to get rid of something. It's to meet. It's to take up this posture of being here. What's here? This is asking for my full attention for my whole being. So, of course, there's anything from this is important. When we're doing something important, we're not thinking about something else. So the practice is, you guys, this is important. What's happening, this being alive. We don't have much of it. And we are never going to know it or grasp it. But there's this moment to be in it fully. To stop holding back. And maybe clearing the mind and certainly coming into the belly and upright spine and definitely opening the eyes and heart and sensation and ears is part of that allowing.

[41:32]

Thank you very much for your... 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. May we fully enjoy the Dharma.

[42:17]

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