Good morning. You know, it's become the custom on our Saturday morning talks, to say, who's here for the first time? Could you put your hand up? But I didn't say that. Here's what I was thinking of saying. Who here doesn't realize that they are here for the first time? Put your hand up. There was a Zen teacher. young men, and he called this kind of turning things upside down, he called it topsy-turvy statements.

[01:05]

We have our conventional notion of what is, but it's just our convention. But it has its own allure, it has its own persuasiveness. Is it signed, not working? He's just changed it. He's just changed it. Can you hear me now? Yeah? Okay. So today, here in the wonderful city center, Quite a group of us, somewhere between 70 and 80, are going to sit all day.

[02:10]

And that, in many ways, marks the beginning of a period of intensive practice. And the theme of this period of intensive practice is the title of an essay, a fascicle, written by the finder of Soto Zen in Japan. And you don't need to remember any of that, it's just context. And it's called Gyoji, which translates as continuous practice. And I'd like to start by reading the first two sentences of this essay. In the vast way of dedicated practice, the most important thing is seeing and doing continuously and ceaselessly. This noticing, practicing, awareness, complete experience is continuously repeating.

[03:20]

And then I have to confess I made up that translation about 45 minutes ago. I took the different English translations, and then I sort of triangulated between them, with some footnotes of the Japanese characters. And as I was doing it, I was thinking, what am I doing? And here's my answer to my own question. While trying to stay true to the spirit of the original, articulating it in a way that strikes home. You know, articulating it in a way that touches.

[04:38]

In one of the translations it says pure conduct. Both of those terms in Buddhism have a specific meaning. It's almost like I need to explain exactly what that means in the context of Buddhist thinking. So I just took it the vast, vast way of dedicated practice. There's something spacious, there's something unlimited about this spirit of practice. It's not a narrow, rigid way of thinking or behaving or relating. It's trying to have us tap into possibility. It's trying to have us tap into seeing what's going on for us at the moment as illustrative of what's possible.

[05:52]

Can we see that we're here for the first time? Every one of us. And it's not any other way, no matter how many Saturday talks you come to. The vast way of dedicated practice. That you have to dedicate. You have to give over to the vitality, the authenticity of now. And then giving over to something is usually related to letting go of something. You know, letting go of all the fixed notions. Oh, I've been there, I know that, I've done that. The preoccupations, you know. I remember once I was giving a talk and in the middle of it someone put their hand up and said, could you repeat that?

[07:04]

Right then I was totally distracted and didn't hear what you were saying. So that dedication asks something of us. And then in a way it gives us abundance. That's its vastness. And then that's also its... the way it's the most important thing. It's kind of... I took that phrase from Suzuki Roshi, the finder of San Francisco Zen Center, who was fond of saying, the most important thing is... And then he had today's most important thing. or maybe the most important thing for that talk. Maybe he changed it later. But that way in which when there's openness, when there's this authentic way we're touched and connected, it feels like the most important thing.

[08:23]

How could it not be the most important thing? Because it's fully expressive of our life in that moment. It is our life in that moment, the most precious thing, sort of, the word thing, that we have, being alive. In the vast way of dedicated practice, the most important thing It's seeing and doing. In the moment, being open, aware of what's happening. And then being it. in contrast to the way our mind, our attention can wander.

[09:34]

Like the person in the talk saying, could you repeat that? I wasn't here when you said it one minute ago, and I didn't hear it. If you look at our consciousness from a psychological perspective, it has a pattern of discontinuous awareness. There's constantly arisings, memories, agitations, responses to what's happening. And it chops up the process of awareness. And what Dogen's trying to say here The request is, can we hold up the aspiration to continuous awareness?

[10:41]

Recently I was reading a book by Daniel Goleman called Social Intelligence, his follow-up to emotional intelligence. Both good reads if you don't know them. and tells this story. And he's in some large building in New York. And he's not familiar with it. And then he sees an exit. And he thinks, okay, well, I'll go out that way because that's convenient for me rather than the way I come in. And so he starts walking towards that exit. And then, in a very angry voice, someone says, stop! What are you doing? And he said, Well, I'm going out that exit. He said, You can't do that. He's very indignant, you know. What kind of a person are you? You're going out that exit?

[11:49]

And he said, And he was thinking, There's no sign saying, Don't go out that exit. There's no possible indicator as to... what the great violation I'm committing. And his point of this story was what he was calling emotional contagion. This person was really angry and indignant at his behavior. And he said it was very hard not to get into it with him. How dare you say that to me? I'm indignant. I'm indignant that you dare to speak to me like that. You're the one violating. I'm in the right. You're in the wrong. And then he was using that. And he said, his description of the story was, he didn't get caught up in that way.

[12:53]

There was something about the kind of... coincidental nature of the whole thing that just struck him. It was almost like a curiosity, the intensity of this person's indignation. But this notion of emotional contagion, We pick up emotions from each other. And then maybe we have a sympathetic relationship to it. They're sad, so we're sad. Or maybe we have an oppositional relationship to it. You're angry at me, so I get angry at you. And then there's an internal equivalent. Something comes up for us, and we have...

[13:57]

an emotional response. And the internal clamor is increased. And then in that state, the image that came to me was, awareness is a little bit like trying to read while you're jumping up and down. You can sort of follow, but it's also, it's one heck of a challenge just to keep your eyes on the line, and then also just jumping up and down, it's kind of distracting by itself. It's sort of competing for your attention. When you look at the heritage, the yogic craft of awareness that has evolved in Buddhism, and I suspect in most spiritual traditions, responding to this state of affairs of the human condition is a significant ingredient.

[15:27]

Okay, if that's how it is to be human, if that's who we are singularly and collectively, how the heck does any one of us open to awareness? How do we do that? And then it's interesting for us, you know, living where we do, when we do, to reference these teachings, like that piece that I mistranslated from Dogen. I mean, he wrote that 780 years ago. Many of the formative teachings in Buddhism we've been told were spoken by Shakyabuni Buddha 2,500 years ago. in northern India, when it was mostly an unpopulated, forested area.

[16:36]

His style of practice was to be a mendicant, a renunciate, and one can't help but think. I can't help but think that what he emphasized was contextual. And we live in an urban area. We live at a time when it's essential to check your smartphone at least once every thirty minutes. Because who knows? What wonderful or awful thing has happened since the last time you checked it? Then how will your friends know you're still alive if you don't text them?

[17:45]

We don't only have the contagion of human-to-human, body-to-body interaction, we have the contagion of multiple means of communication. So then what is the practice in this environment, in this context, under these conditions? And I would say, take that up as a creative challenge. That rather than feel lesser than, ah, those were the golden days in northern India. There's one of the sutras from that age where when Shakyamuni was in the forest, there was five of them, and they led an extraordinarily austere

[19:00]

simple life. And then Shakyamuni went on, and he awakened, and he became a very notable teacher, and he had an ever-growing assembly of monks who traveled with him. Sometimes they'd travel in one large group of five hundred, sometimes there'd be a couple of hundred, and the other ones would be off. And one of his cohorts from the early days, the good old days when they were all in the forest, came to visit Shakyamuni. And he said, it's not like the old days. He says, I don't know about all of this. And Shakyamuni says, I don't know about it either. So even at the time of Shakyamuni, They were the good old days.

[20:01]

And how wonderful for the good old days. But can they instruct us? Can they inspire us? Can they teach us something about the fundamentals, the essence of practice, without diminishing the import of now? This is the first time we've been here. This is the most important thing. Whether we like it or not. Whether we are utterly convinced that the golden days were where it really happened. And this is a pale comparison. It is now. And this is the essence of the teachings.

[21:07]

Now is now, and now is completely itself. And opening his essay with these two sentences, Dogen's saying, this statement always applies. I'm not talking about medieval Japan, I'm not talking about rural northern India, I'm talking about now. And for each of us, each time we sit, each time we come to a moment of awareness, can we invite that kind of authentic authority? This is it. What's happening now?

[22:11]

So that's what I call this period of time. Continuous practice, what's happening now? And that in this urban environment, with its multimedia, with its density of population. We are asked to bring a certain ingenuity, a certain creativity, a certain discovery. So in crafting this, in my own words, trying to make my own words as best I could, as diligently as I could, resonant with the original text. And then for each of us, as practitioners, how do we take the authority of the most important thing

[23:31]

and give it access, give it expression in the life we're living, in the moment we're in. And in a way, this is the heart of zazen. This moment is happening in... What is it to be relating to it? What is it to be experiencing it? What is it to be aware of it in a way that expresses, to use a Buddhist term, its suchness, that expresses this is it. We're not alive anywhere else right now. We are here. There's no part of you in Berkeley or Oakland or San Jose This is it. This is the entirety of your existence. Are you living it?

[24:36]

Or is it a kind of ephemeral event? This is the request of Zazen. Sit still and be what is. And then, how do we do that? In the early suttas, there's different formulations. And one formulation is laid out in a sutta called Anapanasati. And its methodology is something like this. Notice how you're breathing. Notice that you're breathing a body, usually called me. Experience as fully as possible that body breath.

[25:46]

Let that experiencing invite a settling, a letting go of agitation. on a physiological level, on a somatic level, on a psychosomatic level. And let that settling, calming, heal. Let it heal the emotional contagion, the way the challenges, the pains, have been embodied, taken in. Can the breath, in its allowing and releasing, discover what it is to undo?

[26:51]

Rather than doing, in creating or reacting, creating how things should be, or how we want them to be, or reacting against how they are, can there be more of an undoing? Can there be a connecting to how the difficult experiences are reverberating in our being? Sometimes very tangibly, tightness in the chest, or the abdomen, or the mind. Can something be soothed, reassured, allowed to undo? An Anapanasati is quite linear. And then it says, and then let the mind undo. Let the mind unlearn all the things that it's learned to worry about.

[27:56]

Let it unlearn all its fixed judgments. all its fixed opinions. Let it find a state of being that each time it comes on a Saturday morning feels like the first time. That kind of unlearning. And then, after you have mastered all that, a deeper kind of unlearning. The more subtle habits of mind and being, the more subtle grasping of how

[29:05]

being alive is being related to. And let that be undone. So, then the creative challenges. I hope as you hear that, in my clumsy way of describing it, that you can hear something, you can hear a practical, skillful proposition about how to relate to a human life. Yeah. Ease up, settle down, chill out. Yeah, that makes sense. And then the creative challenge is, how in the life you're living, how in the context of the person you are, how given the habit energies of your being, how given the relationships you have, the responsibilities, how would this come alive?

[30:24]

How would this be expressed? And in that regard, I would say this. Two things. One, there's a kind of inner alignment. And I would say the inner alignment is facilitated by taking this general proposition I'm making and owning it, relating to it in a way that as best you can makes sense to you. And I don't just mean that you intellectually approve. You mean, maybe more deeply, the way it touches your heart, the way resonating with its appropriateness, finding within yourself its expression of truth, that something starts to soften.

[31:30]

Yes. So it is. Something starts to align. And then the, I would say, the aspiration, the vow, the resolve to stay aligned with that. as an internal practice. We all know, and hear in Daniel Goldman's story, when someone approaches us indignant and angry, it really doesn't help anything, not ourselves, not the other person, not our general well-being, to just reactively respond with anger and indignation.

[32:34]

We know that. Just something Innes knows that. Something Innes knows that a more thoughtful, spacious, adaptable, creative way of being helps a human life. Hmm? And then for each of us to find our own adjectives, our own phrases that bring that into connection. On an intellectual level, and I would say, more importantly, a heartfelt level. I would say it's worth the exploration. Is there a phrase?

[33:36]

Is there a word? Is there a couple of sentences that when you say them quietly and clearly and thoughtfully to yourself, you have a sort of, oh yeah, right. to find that, to find your own sacred phrases, your own sacred language. Not to say you have to invent it from nothing. Maybe you think of a line from a Mary Oliver poem. Maybe my grandson was singing me a song from Frozen the other day and I thought, that's pretty good. Love's an open door. Oh, it's pretty good. I could work with that.

[34:38]

Wherever and however it comes into being, can that kind of internal involvement happen? And then can it be re-enlivened? No? just doesn't occur, you know, when you're in a redwood forest and it's a perfect day and you're in a good mood and then you remember. Or, as happens to many of us, in a moment where the fabric of our normal life is torn, you know, something very difficult happens. friend dies. We discover some relationship that means a lot to us is ending. And in that moment of being undone, we connect.

[35:51]

Of course, both of those are gifts. The redwood forest and the moment where the world's pulled open. can we also take our phrase, our sensibility, and coach ourselves into keeping it close? In the Zen way, every time we sit down to meditate, we give ourselves a little Dharma talk. And it may be wordless, you know? Your dharma talk to yourself may be attending to your breath. It may be that moment you let your mind soften. You forgive yourself for being all caught up in whatever you're all caught up in in that moment.

[36:58]

But you remember you can do that. You can forgive yourself for being yourself. It takes some practice usually, but it's possible. And then I'd like to offer you, in closing, another variation on the same thing. The notion of pause. and let what's happening happen. Like even right now, just let what's happening happen. The signs, the sight, your state of mind, any particular emotions. And then

[38:05]

Can you let it happen in a way that it invites a kind of undoing? It invites a kind of spaciousness, possibility, rather than moving quickly to your reaction, your response, whatever you're moved habitually to do. Can you linger in the happening of what's happening? Can the sign of the grandfather clock just be it? And let it become the sign of the bird. That's the continuous circle Dogen Zenji is talking about.

[39:12]

The shape, the form doesn't stay the same, the sound doesn't stay the same, but there's continuous practice, continuous awareness. And as we let the moment undo us, then... It invites whatever's next, however it appears. What a stimulating thought. In a moment this talk will end, you'll get up, you'll walk out that door. What will you think? Who will you turn to and talk to? What exactly? And who will turn and talk to you? Will they smile?

[40:17]

Or will they be indignant because you're doing the wrong thing? There's lots of wrong things you can do at a Zen Center. Maybe we're preparing you for the world. But this letting now, you know? This kind of cycle of life, we let something be undone, and then it reappears. And it just continues, you know? Dogen says, it's a cycle, you know? be undone, go back to the start and do it over again. This is the most important thing.

[41:20]

And it's constantly evolving, changing, creative, unpredictable process. And Dogen says, This is the heart of practice. And for no good reason, other than I'm charmed by this poem right now, I want to read a little piece of this poem to describe almond blossoms. To describe almond blossoms, I need visitations to the subconscious to guide me to the name of an emotion that hangs on trees. I need visitations to the subconscious to guide me to the name of an emotion that hangs on trees.

[42:24]

My office is up there and it faces that way, and after morning practice I went up there and the sun, which was rising over there in Oakland, was glinting off the windows of the high-rise, a kind of yellowy, orangey color. And it just sparked in me a kind of delight. Another day. Yippee! I need visitations to the subconscious that guide me to the name of emotions that hang on trees or buildings glinting in the morning sun or the sign to birds or whatever.

[43:33]

world is constantly offering us its magic, its gifts. What is it to receive them? 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. Your financial support helps us to continue to offer the Dharma. For more information, please visit sfzc.org and click Giving. May we fully enjoy the Dharma.

[44:24]

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