This podcast is offered by the San Francisco Zen Center on the web at www.sfzz.org. Our public programs are made possible by donations from people like you. Good morning. Last night, during the last period, in case you didn't notice, I offered a guided meditation. Guided meditations are a tricky business. They can seem to imply, this is the way you do Zazen.

[01:02]

and this is what should happen when you do it. There are endless Dharma Gates, both in calling forth, bringing forth, awakening, and how that appears. how that comes into the realm of experience. And still, it's very helpful to have a deliberate, steady engagement in your practice. And even today I would say this Starting over is attending to the particulars of posture.

[02:06]

And as you keep sitting and keep noticing and experiencing the more subtle details of your own body, of awareness of body, of experiencing of body, a remembering, not so much as an idea, but as a felt experience. So each time you sit, it's like calling forth the experience of body and the alignment that enables that, the way of engaging the details of breath, of the spine, of how you sit on your cushion. in how you engage mind. You know, yesterday I was reading that, the beginning of that koan by Yakusan that Dogen likes to quote.

[03:15]

It's sprinkled throughout the Shubha Genzo. Think not thinking. How do you think not thinking, non-thinking? In some way, we could say, pretty straightforward, just settled down so that the mind isn't just dictating reality. And in that more spacious experiencing of what is, thinking takes a back seat. And I would say, that's true. thinking, constructing some definition of what is from the experience that arises, from the mind, from thinking, from seeing, from hearing, from smelling, from tasting, from touching.

[04:35]

This is a fundamental attribute of human consciousness. And much more, or just as intriguingly, a fundamental teacher of human consciousness. What does it teach? It teaches the constructed nature of what is. and it teaches the path of liberation so as if that wasn't confusing enough here's a con wonderfully confusing con it's not possible to read in this slide and In the sea of Issa, 10,000 feet deep, there's a rock on the bottom.

[05:50]

Pick it up without getting your hands wet. In the sea of Issa, 10,000 feet deep, there is a rock on the bottom. Pick it up. without getting your hands wet. The Sea of Isai is a place a little bit like Monterey Bay that has an abundant life, varied in many forms. the abundance of existence, its endless variations that we are part of, in which we inter-be despite our determined efforts to separate, to declare the majesty and the aloneness of me.

[07:10]

we inter-be. It's a conditioned existence. In the midst of conditioned existence, what is it to not just simply in a fatalistic way produce another conditioned response? What is it to not just sit down and rehash the habitual ways of thinking and feeling, the habitual stories that are so deep they've shaped your body. They've shaped the neural pathways in your brain. What is it to not simply walk as the habituated me walking the habituated way me walks?

[08:31]

What is the unconditioned response to a conditioned existence? Each morning we chant, entering deeply the merciful ocean. Is there mercy in intrinsically conditioned existence? So to my mind, it brought forth this poem from Mary Oliver's The Book of Time.

[09:33]

I rose this morning, early as usual, and went to my desk. But it's spring, and the birds are in the woods, somewhere in the twirling branches, and are singing. And so now I'm standing by the open door, Now stepping down onto the grass, touching the new leaves, noticing the way the yellow butterflies move together in a twinkling cloud over the field. Thinking. Maybe just looking and listening is the real work. Maybe the world without us is the real poem. In our more usual state of being, creating a separate self is a necessary part of survival.

[10:50]

How else will I stay safe? How else will I come into full contact with being alive? And yet the world, in its endless manifestation of interbeing, is offering us a response to those questions. In one of the early stories of Buddhism, as they're walking along, someone approaches Shakyamuni and says, could you give me the gist of your teaching? I know you have lots of great teachings, but could you just give me the two-minute version?

[12:02]

And being obliging, he said, yes. In the seeing, just the seeing, in the hearing, In just the hearing. In the thinking, just the thinking. Thoughts without a thinker. And in this koin by Yakuza, really it's asking, what is it to... orient ourselves towards this direct simplicity of experiencing? What is it that enables that? What is it that brings it about?

[13:07]

What is it that helps us to not get stuck in endless workings of mind? to that, to stay close to that, to keep being available to learn from that. As some of you know, my own homespun recipe is notice, acknowledge, contact, experience. some Theravadan monasteries.

[14:18]

The practice is, when you notice you're being distracted, stop right there. Whatever you're doing, stop, reconnect, reintroduce mindfulness, experiencing, and then proceed. I would offer you this as an extension of connecting to breath. Then carry that breath with you. When you notice having been lost in mind, exhale. But as you exhale, notice the residual mental disposition the residual emotional disposition don't exhale like you're trying to rid yourself of some poison exhale like you're re-entering the merciful ocean

[15:45]

Exhale like a sigh. Thoughts are an endless arising. And in the midst of this, returning to awareness. And then notice with the inhale, now what? So as Dogen comments on this koan, he weaves in some wonderfully complicated ideas. As I was saying yesterday, you know, reading

[16:54]

five different translations and seeing how each person parsed them a little differently. Maybe a teaching for us that this is no... In the realm of thinking, this is no simple matter. In the realm of experiencing, it's utterly obvious. In the realm of intending, in the realm of directed attention, there is skillfulness, there is subtlety. In the realm of experiencing, there is just what is.

[18:05]

And this is the interplay. You could say, form an emptiness. How do we skillfully address conditioned existence? Or more particularly, how do each one of us skillfully address the person that we are, the habits that we have? How does each one of us skillfully sit with the body that we are? in holding up that question with more with a sense of intrigue and curiosity than a sense of something that needs to be conquered, controlled.

[19:25]

a deep willingness to learn. How is sitting with this body, how is skillfully sitting with this body done in a way that enables a sense of settledness? sense of openness that invites sukha rather than dukkha. In enabling sukha, we enable the natural energy of the body. And sukha

[20:38]

has intertwined in it not just an openness, but also a form of engagement, an engagement that stimulates that energy. And amazingly, I have a poem like that. Who is this coming from the ash pit? Walking tall, as if in a procession, bearing in front of her a slender pan, withdrawn just now from underneath the firebox, weighty, full to the brim, with whitish dust and flakes still sparking hot, that the wind is blowing into her apron bib. into her mouth and eyes while she proceeds, unwavering, keeping her burden horizontal still, hands in a tight, sore grip around the metal knob, proceeds until we've lost sight of her, where the worn path turns behind the henhouse.

[22:02]

Engaging the moment. Maybe you've noticed in morning service that after sitting, chanting, reading the words, bowing, it's almost like in a more deliberate and palpable way can be engaged. that the usual narrative of mind that has better things to do than do something as silly as thou has quieted dinesome. In engaging the activity of now comes more alive. James Heaney, in writing the poem, that has no end, that has no great accomplishment, accomplishment or conclusion.

[23:33]

Just the vignette of experiencing the experience that's being experienced. The everyday task of taking the ashes out of the fire. In our life here, with its everyday tasks, everyday activities, can giving over to those activities rather than be mediated by approval or disapproval, rather than be subdued or separated from by an internal narrative? Can they become an ally in being awake?

[24:40]

Can they become an ally in experiencing the experience? This is the yoga of our practice. In conventional terms, simple. And in the subtle workings of consciousness, mysterious. the subtle workings of consciousness as challenging as reaching into water 10,000 feet deep without getting wet what is that non attachment that lets

[26:00]

roll away like water off a duck's back to what degree is it enabled by renunciation is the dictates of your habit energies present themselves How will you negotiate them? I would suggest with attention, curiosity, and a steady involvement exploration of what this is all about and I would say be cautious about quick judgments be cautious about this needs to be controlled this needs to be subdued and then on the other side well I have to have this

[27:28]

the territory in between, in between control and some kind of unexamined have to have. Recognizing that there's something unique to your own conditioning that only you can fathom. only you can enter deeply into only you can experience the merciful ocean of the depths of your own being only you can immerse body and mind in that condition C. So non-attachment, and then the two other attributes are samādhi, continuous contact,

[28:59]

opening to interbeing and of course all three are intertwined sometimes in engaging the activity running the wiping cloth along the mail board, the self disappears in a flash of joy. Despite ourselves, it became all that was happening. Sometimes in engaging a stretch in yoga, in the cleansing of the body, just experiencing it, something yields to continuous contact.

[30:30]

Sometimes in noticing the mind caught up in some topic and in the moment of noticing just opening the hand of thought and letting go. Sometimes renunciation sometimes just a simple non attachment and as we engage like this as we as we weave these moments of contact into a more continuous stream they start to weave together a potency.

[31:45]

They start to weave together an impact on the patterns of thought and feeling that are going on. Exactly what is the consequence? Much better to not even try to figure that out. How can we possibly figure out the complexity of whatever it is? 500,000 years of being alive. To just meet it as it is. To attend closely to what's created. Sometimes very simple.

[32:51]

The complexities of the self and its constructs vanish. And this squawk of the blue jay is the lion's roar of the Buddha. Sometimes... Okay, that's enough. Sometimes just the complexity of our being creates its own almost morass, its own dense web, that seems impenetrable.

[33:58]

Often towards the end of the day, combination of some physical fatigue, some mental fatigue, feels like all is lost, the capacity to do anything with this body and mind. Don't be fooled. That body and mind has been softened up. To sit down and start over. Directed attention can evoke beyond thinking. How do you practice not thinking, beyond thinking?

[35:21]

If we bring it back into the realm of thinking, it's complex, it's challenging. It's difficult to remember and sustain. If we enter into interbeing, something in us that knows exactly what it is to be alive, comes forth. It's the steady hand that carries the ash horizontal, even when it's blowing in your face, hot sparks. It's the sign of the gravel

[36:33]

you walk from the Zen dog back to your cabin. In a wonderful, mysterious way, these moments of experiencing, even though conscious mind didn't catalog them, in a way, our body and consciousness does not forget them. as we enter in more fully into the merciful ocean of Shashin, we can invite them to come forth. They become the path of awakening.

[37:40]

become the continuous contact of samadhi. It's not a struggle of good and evil, of awareness and lost in rumination. It's just a merciful immersion in now. So now I'm standing by the open door, now stepping down onto the grass, touching the new leaves, noticing the way the yellow butterflies move together in a twinkling cloud over the field, thinking, maybe just looking and listening is the real work.

[38:53]

Without us is the real poem. And something in our deeper reverberating discomfort is eased. If even just for that moment, Something is eased not because the demands and the aversions that has given rise to have been fulfilled. No, because a deeper sense of non-attachment that allows what is to just be what is.

[39:58]

what I'm trying to say, and I'm going to stop in a moment, in case you're wondering, is keep paying attention in the service of discovering the skillful way to relate to the conditioned person you are. Let your body teach you how to practice with your body. Let your habits of thought and feeling teach you how to practice with thoughts and feeling. And as we enter into the structure of Hashin,

[41:13]

Engage it. Let it be a gift. Your gift to interbeing, interbeing's gift to you. Each of us supports everyone else to do Shashin. In ways we will probably never fully get, understand, or appreciate. Okay. 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.

[42:21]

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

[42:31]

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