This podcast is offered by the San Francisco Zen Center on the web at www.sfcc.org. Our public programs are made possible by donations from people like you. Thank you for coming. Somewhat prompted by the Chosan where we had questions and answers, we thought we would do questions and answers this evening too. Vicki will arrive soon. She has a long-standing class that she teaches on Wednesday nights, and it's somewhere across town, and she leaves there and gets here when she can, which is usually about 8 o'clock. So for those of you here last week, when we did those repeated questions,

[01:00]

about immersing in your subjective experience. And it's like letting the question go deeper. Letting the question go deeper than just the ideas in your head. You know, like touching down into something It's maybe not in the foreground of our mind, but maybe more representative of our intuitive kind of responses or our deeper emotions. So it challenges or releases our more conventional working reality and who we are, who we think we are,

[02:03]

and say we are in that context and how we represent ourselves socially. So we go underneath it. And then the other way, the question that we discussed in tonight's Tea, you know, where's the edge in your practice? A little bit like stepping back. I think they do 108 bows. Well, that's just their problem. But on this occasion, you can sit down. The question we had at tea was, where's the edge in your practice?

[03:11]

Wow. Busy night. So I'm tying in the question last week, saying it was about dropping down more into our being and letting the answers come up. And then the question in T was, where's the edge in your practice and what's your advice for yourself? So twofold, a little bit of a more matter-of-fact or dispassionate acknowledgement of what's going on for you. Sort of stepping aside from Do you like it? Do you not like it? Or any other kind of assessment? Just what is it? And then in asking, what's your advice for yourself?

[04:18]

Again, can you not get entangled in? And here's the way I respond to that. When that happens, I have this kind of feeling, this kind of response, and then here's what I do with that habitually. It's like from a more thoughtful place, from a more grounded place, what's your advice for yourself? Again, you could take the self out of it and say, when that arises, what does practice ask of you? Believe it or not, that was the warm-up. That was to get you stimulated to ask questions. But you could actually... Maybe a warm-up in as much as... What's the question that comes up for you in the context of your practice?

[05:29]

It's like... inquiry comes up for us and then we look to see how it's expressed in what's in front of us, in how we're relating to ourselves, to others, to whatever. Not to fix something, but to discover, to reveal, to make evident, to become aware of. It's not like you ask us a question, because you're stupid and you don't know and we're smart and we do know. It's more in the question is some inquiry about what's going on and then we just explore it together. Any brave person like to ask the first question? Thank you. Would you like to repeat, summarize the question for the tape, please?

[07:16]

Okay, so tell me if I missed something, okay? So David's question is a very important one because he's become recently more aware of the conditioned nature of his responses. thoughts, feelings, perceptions, impulses, and consciousness. And Paul was suggesting with his question, what is it that practice asks of me? To allow the response to come from an intuitive place. Is intuition conditioned? If so, how do we work with that? Did I understand?

[08:20]

Is there more? Okay. Did you want to answer? What's that? I think I have to answer one question at a time. We will come back to it, okay? Yeah, that's a very good question from the point of view of intuition. And what I would like to say about intuition is that it is conditioned, but it's conditioned at a subtle level. So with intuition, we respond from a deeper and wider point of view than surface reactions.

[09:30]

Intuition points to response rather than reaction. So when we ask a question about where a relative is hiding, that also points to something deeper. So for instance, if you look at your hand, and we tried this in class on Monday night, and you look at your hand and ask yourself, how old is my hand? You'll probably come up with an answer like 58 or 32 or something like that. But you may be able to see in your hand if someone said, Well, can you see the shape of your mother's hand in your hand? Can you see the shape of your father's hand in your hand? And you might be able to see something that reminds you of your mother or father in your hand.

[10:37]

And then, can you see your father in your hand? Can you see your mother in your hand? Can you see how much water you've been drinking in your hand? And then can you see water in your hand? Can you see solid part of your hand? Can you see earth in your hand? Can you see food in your hand? And if you look deeply, you can see all these things in your hand. And if you look deeply, you can see all these things through intuition. But you have a wider view. So when we respond from intuition, sometimes we find ourselves surprising ourselves. And so it's a way to break up ordinary thinking about ordinary active mind.

[11:44]

It's a way to come from a place that's more inclusive and deeper. And I don't want to put words in Paul's mouth. So please, you know, if I'm saying something different or that points in a different direction, please say so. But Zen practice aims at this intuition. But then if we fix on this intuition as a self, it becomes nothing more than, you know, another habit of thought. So intuition is constantly changing. It's constantly changing and it's something that responds at the moment, but you can't really hold on to it as right. Even intuition makes mistakes. So we know because it makes mistakes that it's limited, right? Is this working?

[12:46]

Okay. So we know it's limited because it makes mistakes. But the mistakes themselves have a wider... than just the mistake. Because mistakes are not mistakes. Our intuition understands what to do with them. Okay? So I think intuition that Paul's using isn't like, you know, I've got a hunch. I've got a hunch that you're thinking this or thinking that. It's not like that. Or, you know... it's not like seeing the future or something like that. I think what Paul's talking about is the part of us that can see and relate to the causal body because it's deeply in tune with it. And it's the part of us that develops through direct experience.

[13:53]

And so it's wider, deeper, and less conceptually limited than our usual reactive mind. And it just also happens to be where she's hiding. So check out the age of your hand sometime. Check out who in the family tree is in your big toe or in your question. Okay? I would say something similar, David, and I'd said like this. All the time we're having all sorts of sensory input and we're having all sorts of learning experiences. And we're sort of present and we're sort of not present. And we're stringing together a narrative in relationship to that.

[14:57]

The parts we're present for, the parts we're not present for. And when there's not so much awareness, when there's not so much presence, our previous history is coloring more the current event. And who we say we are, who we say the world is, who we say someone else is, is stronger under those conditions. As we pause, become more spacious, allow for a more spacious kind of response, it opens up, it tends to touch down into the information we've gleaned from all those experiences that isn't contained in the narrative. Does that mean it's perfectly correct?

[16:02]

As Vicky was saying, no, not necessarily. Can we go beyond that? Yes, we can. In a moment... of complete presence in a moment of non-separation and complete engagement, there's going beyond. We can also, as I was saying last night, the sudden way, the gradual way, in cultivating, if we keep dropping down, if we keep creating a spacious aware consciousness that isn't dominated, by the coloration and conditioning of past events. That information becomes more available and the compelling, convincing nature of the narrative from past history lessens up on its influence.

[17:14]

And then what I was trying to say last night in the class was that it's not so much to stop it completely as it is to see it for what it is and to learn from it. And in Buddhism, as we start to see what it is, an ever-changing, conditioned, arising, we call that shunyata, or it isn't absolutely real. It's just a conditioned arising that happens to come forth in this momentary experience. And that engagement of emptiness sort of dissipates the authority that makes us think this is real. So even though the conditioning doesn't cease, the way in which it's grasped and turned into something real can in fact be released.

[18:30]

Thank you. Any other questions? Yes. Did you have a question? What's the question? It's not a question. That's a request for something you want. Yeah? Still not a question. Now that's a question. Can you see the difference? There's what we want, and then there's how to engage the world.

[19:33]

Rather than let what we want separate us from the world, how to let it join us to the world. It's a kind of scary thing to say, who wants to go with me? Maybe nobody wants to go with me. And maybe somebody does. So the two of you can connect after we finish here. So sometimes we reach out, we ask, and we connect. So, okay, thank you. Any other questions, please? It sounded like the first question you asked was, do we need to have trust in order to be able to reflect upon our experience?

[21:35]

Does that sound close to what you were asking? reflection is to look back. What has happened? In one sense, it's an innocent question. It's a question without an agenda. It's just what has happened. But there's a way in which We need to trust something to be able to put down our agenda.

[22:44]

Normally we meet the world with some agenda. We're sort of living out saying, when my agenda is met, I can be okay. It's like we don't quite trust the way things are right now. when my agenda's met, then things will be okay, and then there's a way in which I'll be able to trust it. There's a way in which I will be able to trust it when it's closer to how I want it to be or how I want it to stop being in a way that I don't like. One of the big challenges in our practice is, can we actually take the risk of not simply meeting the moment with our agenda and just meet it as it is?

[23:57]

And there's a kind of trust in that. It's almost like trusting that the world just the way it is, is a livable place. That I, just the way I am, can be lived, can be experienced. And what it leads us to discover is... that that is possible. But usually what we do is we earn our own trust. You try it out, you discover something, and then you pull back into asserting your agenda in whatever way you do it. Then you try it out a little more, and then the more times you try it out and discover

[25:05]

It was okay. It doesn't mean it was... I got everything I want. It doesn't even mean it was pleasant. But there was some way in which I survived. I was able to live in that moment. I was able to experience it. And then usually we retreat back inside the world, according to me, even though... often we're not that happy there. But the more we keep exploring direct experience, the more we learn to trust that. Very much, for most of us, we earn our own trust through our continuous practice. sounds like you're saying there is a way to express Buddhism without ceremony and ritual naturally, like a child.

[26:25]

And so I would like to respond with a... The first of the wisdoms is called Great Perfect Mirror Wisdom. And it's the wisdom of reflection. So there's a chapter of the Shobo Genzo, the treasury of the true Dharma I, called Genjo Koan. And in that fascicle, Dogen Zenji, the founder of our school in Japan, says that the moon is reflected in a puddle, even an inch across, or even in a drop of water. And so that lake-like quality of all of us, which I think we've been touching on in this conversation, is called Great Perfect Mirror Wisdom. And it improves in skill with practice.

[27:30]

So one thing that one can do just in general is you can practice this in body, speech, or mind. So You can see the world with nature's eyes reflecting the world. And this also relates to the other questions that we've talked about so far. Because the person who responds as if their eyes were nature's eyes and their hands were nature's hands, by nature I mean Buddha nature, is acting without ceremony and ritual. and yet is doing a universal ceremony of reflecting and enacting the single body of the world through many different shapes and words.

[28:39]

This is a very important practice, particularly if you're practicing as a lay person and not involved in the transmission of forms and ceremonies. Then the form of your practice, the main form of your practice, might be the form of your responsibilities, your commitments, your relationships, your values, and your inmost request. In that shape, which is a U shape, U meaning it's about your height, it has your color hair, it has your skin, it has your clothes. How does the Dharma arise in that shape? That is an invisible ceremony that expresses a unity with all beings in a fully supported way through the diversity of moment-after-moment experience.

[29:49]

So that's Zen practice. And the zazen that we do and the ritual that we do is just a simplified and kind of dramatized enactment of that basic ritual non-ceremony ceremony, that non-ritual ritual that's evoked by the words great perfect mirror of wisdom. I hope that helps. Ask me the same question. Ask Paul the same question. I would say it takes two to tango here.

[30:56]

If we think of Buddhism as an ism, as some kind of formal traditional practice, the formal traditional practice is expressed through ceremonies and rituals. Now, if you think about it as... If you don't think about it as an ism, if you don't think about it as a formalized version of practice, if you just think of it as just pointing at the everyday human experience and waking up in the middle of it, then of course not. You can wake up in the middle of any activity or any experience. And there's no way you can say, well, this is the only way to experience what you're doing.

[32:07]

You have to do it in Japanese or Chinese or something. No, it's ridiculous. Every moment of our life offers us that. And so how much you involve yourself in any... or tradition of Buddhism, I would say be guided by what resonates, what touches you, what feels right. It's a good starting place. Is that okay? I think it would be appropriate for Paul and me to argue at this point. Let's do it. Okay. Okay, you said no. And then I elaborated. So I would say, what is Buddhism?

[33:09]

Well, and then in my elaboration, I offered a multiple choice response. If Buddhism is an ism, meaning... It's an organized tradition that has a heritage of ways of waking up that are embodied within rituals and ceremonies. Well, that's what it is. And then if it's not that, well, then something more direct, simple is possible. But Ryushin, aren't you confusing them if you offer them multiple choice? I have to say that we actually agree here. Not necessarily.

[34:15]

That's not necessarily a confusing answer. I mean, how anyone receives a particular answer is a very significant ingredient in whether the answer is confusing or not. OK, thank you. You have to let other people ask too, okay? No, not you, Juan, behind you. I'm sorry, Juan. Yeah, and it was fine. Yeah, okay. No, that's okay. I missed it. Yeah, it was... Janine wants to ask.

[35:26]

So a couple days ago, I was in the middle of a cold, and so I was just in this state of imagined torture and just kind of thinking I had to empty out the experience, experience it as sort of like without a preferred alternative. And as I was kind of going through that, I had this understanding of these two components, of ways I had experienced my life as being reversed. And I'm not going to go into the details, but I had this experience of a relationship of things that sort of like really helped me understand how I was creating my own suffering. And it had a lot of content. And I'm not going to go into it, but it also had a certain shape, which was like sort of crisscross. And And then I had a fever for like the next day. And during that day, I couldn't remember the content of the understanding, but I could remember the shape of it, and I could remember the relief and the sort of emptying out in the way that when the things were understood in relation to each other, they sort of like emptied out.

[37:19]

They sort of canceled each other out. And so it was just this really interesting phenomenon of like, not being able to remember the story and the conditions and the whole thing that I was so convinced of for years, but I could remember the way it felt to relieve those circumstances of their weight or something. And it was really fascinating on that day because I guess it was because of the fever. I just could not remember what it was, but I could remember the relief. And then the next day, the information came back in. And it actually wasn't burdensome. It was kind of interesting. But it felt like a kind of glimpse of a process that's possible all the time and just the way that when we're so convinced of our version of things and it's just like over and over, we make our next move based on that. Anyway, it's a basic principle.

[38:25]

I think we've been talking about it already, but if you have any more to add about, I guess, the authority of one's story, maybe. Sorry, it's not more of a question. Do you want to? I will, but please go ahead. Well, I would like to say that one story does have authority and that for many people it feels almost unshakable because it takes a substantial, it takes a pretty convincing experience of life outside the story to leaven one's belief in the story. But actually, things outside our story are happening all the time.

[39:30]

And our story is constantly being recreated. And it's the pattern that, the habit, the pattern of recreating the story and investing belief in it moment after moment that gives it the appearance of unshakability or solidity. But things are happening outside the story all the time and in special conditions like having a fever or an emergency, a near-death experience, having a baby, seeing a rainbow or a flower, having someone say, I love you, suddenly the story shifts in unpredictable ways. As Vicky says, so often our story has so much authority that it's very helpful for us to explore.

[40:56]

Maybe life brings forth a situation that snaps us out of it, but also to learn. And I think that that's part of the art of poetry. Here's the literal. And then here's the poetic expression. Maybe it's the impression that that made. Maybe it's a particular sensibility that it evoked. Rather than holding together the whole story and its definition of reality, just taking a particular part of it. To me, sometimes that's what metaphor does. Or just taking a sensibility that's in relationship or interwoven and letting that have authority more than the whole story.

[42:01]

To me, that's why so often a poetic expression in an extraordinary way, can speak with authority that maybe the usual narrative somehow couldn't, even though it's insistent upon its own truth. And on that note, we will end. Thank you very much. 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 sfcc.org and click giving.

[43:05]

May we fully enjoy the Dharma.

[43:08]

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