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. I'd like to start my Dharma talk with a poem. Despite that response, I'll still throw the foam. What is the name of the deep breath I would take over and over for all of us? Call it whatever you want. It's happiness. It's another one of the ways to enter the fire. At the moment, I'm participating in, co-leading a workshop called Diving into Devotion.

[01:14]

I thought the title was entirely the product of the co-teacher, Janet Stone, a wonderful yoga teacher. But she tried to tell me it was my idea. So in the course of the workshop, it's like we're drawing a straight line of practice. The devotion, this extraordinary capacity for gratitude and love in response to engaging the life we're living. The story we're telling is something like this. Quite simply, a straight line. Aspiration, intention, resolve, diligence, and discipline, devotion.

[02:22]

And of course, nothing in our life is that simple. Because we're just not that simple. But still, There's a utility. There's a support. There's a guidance. And maybe much more interestingly, there's an illumination and realization in coming into the rigor of the straight line of practice. Reminding yourself, okay, what is this about? What is it? this human life is about and what's the most relevant and significant response to that and how can that be lived not just as a fleeting realization in a moment of crisis where the world cracks open in its usual formality

[03:33]

cracks open into something raw and unmediated? How can it be lived in a way that we stay close? How can that purposeful response to our life come alive in so many ways in our work, in our relationships, in our zazen, in our yoga, in whatever we're doing? What can you call that breath I take over and over again that captures that purposefulness? What can you call that way of living? I often feel, I guess we bring Buddhist practice to the West, that

[04:34]

discipline is kind of like the stepchild. Nobody really wants to hear about discipline. I was marveling this afternoon in our yoga session, you know, and John said, oh, let's start off doing this. And I was thinking, you know, this is kind of fun, you know, and not so difficult. And darn if before I knew it she'd tossed us into the fire. It took everything I got and a little more. In what part of our life isn't asking for that? Everything we've got and a little more. And so even though it's a wonderful story of practice as a straight line, start with your intention, let your intention ripen into your activity, let your activity express discipline and diligence, and let that ripen into rather than an act of servitude into

[06:07]

act of joy sounds good doesn't it you think oh so after I've sat enough Zazen or done enough yoga or whatever else you consider to be your spiritual practice it'll be like a sweet breeze blowing me along and I'll be like a leaf And in some strange, contradictory way, it is. But it's what comes along with that. It's not so straight. It's endlessly varied. I think many of us, when we start to do meditation, when we start to do zazen,

[07:13]

And I think even when we start to do hatha yoga, we'll take this stiff, twisted body and turn it into a shining work of art. Or we'll sit zazen and we'll take this trembling mind and we'll ground it and we'll clarify it in its capacity for attending to what's at hand. will have a certainty to it. And then very interestingly, what comes up in defiance, in contradiction, in accompaniment to the straight line, teaches us how to live. there's a way in which our search for perfection for the ideal for the exquisite beauty of purity is it in way dismissing something that's equally worthy of our devotion our human life and in all its attributes

[08:45]

And I think those of us who've meditated for a while, 10 minutes or so, discover there's a whole lot more going on than just the upright balance and the free-flowing breath. I'd like to start exploring this from... another piece of Mary Oliver's poem. It's the nature of stone to be satisfied. There's something in us that can hold still. There's something in us that can sit upright. There's something in us that knows. Should we turn it off a little? Is it hard to hear?

[09:50]

Thanks. Maybe I can move this up. Is that any better? How about that? Does that do it? Okay. Thanks. There's something in us that knows. In a strange way, there's something in us that rejoices when the world that we know cracks open. There's something in us that treasures those moments of awe. A kind of contradictory moment of relief in the midst of our sense of catastrophe when the world falls apart.

[11:16]

the nature of stone to be satisfied and it's the nature of water to want to be somewhere else wherever we look the sweet guttural swill of the water tumbling wherever we look the stone basking in the Sun or offering itself to the golden liking It's our nature not only to see that the world is beautiful, but to stand in the dark under the stars or at noon in the golden rainfall of light, asking, what does it mean that world's so beautiful? What does it mean? And if only it stopped there. If only that was our only question, what diligent students we'd be of the world of meaning.

[12:28]

But it also prompts our seemingly endless capacity to complain. This is not what I signed up for. This could be better. Why did they do this to me? Why did I do this to me? This very mind that we sit with when we sit in its restless wish to be somewhere else. Its innate capacity to keep revealing the truth of impermanence. everything's always changing everything's always falling out of balance into a new way of being that right there along with the part of us that knows it's the part of us it's it's wondering

[13:53]

How do I find a relationship? How do I find an intimacy with this world of being? It's always changing. But I can influence but not control. This world that makes me as I make it. of the knack of practice is discovering that it's the straight line of discipline and diligence that reveals the restless variation that arises in our being it not only reveals it but it illuminates it no you sit zazen

[14:58]

and let that ripen into a receptive attention this is what we take in we take in the sign of a voice we take in the sign of the crickets and they interweave with whatever thoughts or physical sensations are going on inside our head. How can we be devoted to that? How can we find within that a source of joy and gratitude? one fierce answer is we enter through fire this is the aliveness of our being it's unruly but it's extraordinary energetic it's extraordinary dynamic and that as such

[16:31]

It's asking us to allow ourselves to be undone by its fire, by its energy, by its dynamic being. And the form of an asana, the form of zazen, or the forms of the rituals that we use, or the form of the world we construct and call it a zendo. They invite us, paradoxically, not to turn to stone, but they invite us to vibrate with life. The straight line of discipline, of being in the moment, of attending to it just as it is, is what shows us that just as it is, is water.

[17:45]

It's always changing. It's always flowing through the stone. And yet, this capacity to be grounded, to be like stone, helps make that evident. I hope this is making some sense to you. It makes sense to me. the dynamic can swirl us. It can leave us sort of like tumbling head over heels, perplexed, anxious, frightened.

[18:48]

That quality of being present is essential for us to find our bearings in the life we're living. The engaging a dynamic is what helps us discover that being part of the dynamic is not a failure. It's not a failure to think when you're doing Zazen. It's not a failure to feel. It's not a failure that your mind can think of four different ways to think about something and have conflicting and contradictory feelings. It's when that takes us and tumbles us head over heels and disconnects us

[20:06]

and sends us in search of safety, of something that we can hold and say, okay, reality is just this. Reality is just the consequence of being able to follow the inhale into the exhale and the exhale into the inhale. Or open up into some asana. or some other form of practice. The fullness of practice is more complex. It's more varied. It holds all that a human existence can create. And when it's engaged with groundedness,

[21:08]

when we sit upright and see it when it doesn't tumble us over head or heels we see it and we see through it we see shunyata we see its impermanence we see its dependent core rising the world creates me and I create the world is its own form of devotion. This is its own form of intimacy. And when we dance with it, when we move with it, it's joy. When we try to escape it or control it, it's suffering.

[22:10]

So the request of practice shifts. It now becomes something closer to staying alive than staying still. The great challenge of Zazen is to keep your body alive while you sit. to not let it become a static object that's sort of parked there while your mind rattles around doing all the things your mind does. It's this grinding element that illuminates the nature of mind and lets us see that right in our own being, this dynamic play of existence is happening this impermanence this dependent core rising this relevance that's created only in relationship to other things we're in the time of the blue moon which is just a cute notion that someone came up with sometime for when you have

[23:50]

two moons in one month which happened just in August couple of days ago so there's two forms of fire in one form of fire is a devotion to staying upright, to staying attentive, staying connected. Another form of fire is to become the activity of the moment. And in some ways, the former is exemplified by Zazen, And the latter is exemplified by vinyasa, a form of yoga that's constantly moving.

[24:55]

I think the word literally means flowing. And it's interesting, you know, diligent vinyasa students usually become flexible, can sit cross-legged with comfort. But when they try to extend that into those dreary long meditations that we do in Zen, there's a different kind of challenge. It's like in your flow can there be stillness. And then for Zen students, in the diligence of your upright balance stillness can there be no resistance to flow can the fact that mind is endlessly moving cannot stay in the realm of awareness can the body

[26:19]

that's vibrant and alive, can it not just simply ossify there in the simplicity of the asana of Zazin. These are the two plays that come forth. And all of this comes into description in another part of this poem I'm reading from a book called the leaf in the cloud by Mary Oliver even now I remember something

[27:22]

The way a flower in a jar of water remembers its life in the perfect garden. The way the flower in a jar of water remembers its life as a closed seed. The way a flower in a jar of water steadies itself, remembering itself. So this is our practice, remembering something about our heritage of being. In some ways we could say it's about dropping below. What does it mean? In some ways, the wonderful gift of half a yoga is that it doesn't give primacy to meaning it gives primacy to engagement and so it links us back into an engagement a remembering of something in our being

[28:53]

fact that our breath breathes our body, that our breath enlivens our body, that our breath in its being, in its arising and falling away, utterly exemplifies life and its participation in life. this kind of remembering and as we remember the particular of our own being it reminds us it teaches us only is near Oliver says you know this breath that I breathe for all of us what's the name of the deep breath I would take over and over for all of us.

[29:58]

What an interesting way to do zazen, to think that you're breathing the planet, you're breathing the crickets. You're not just breathing the heart and lungs of your own being. Call it whatever you want. it's something below what we give name to so remembering in this way even now I remember something we have flower in a jar of water remembers its life as a closed seed we have flower in the jar of water steadies itself remembering itself long ago the plunging roots the gravel the rain the glossy stem the wings of the leaves, the swords of the leaves, rising and clashing for the rose of the sun, the salt of the stars, the crown of the wind, the beds of the clouds, the blue dream, the unbreakable circle.

[31:15]

So classically, especially in Zen, our practice points beyond thinking and in a way beyond knowing. And then how can that inform and guide a world of thinking and a world of knowing? And it's this juxtaposition of not knowing that reveals the way we construct. It's like we let it drop and that lets us see what it is we hold up. This is not the exquisite territory only discovered in the rare atmosphere of a Zen monastery.

[32:47]

This is the everyday interplay of our lives. We're always in the throes of something that's being constructed. It's this passion play of our shared human existence, often, usually, of our collective wish to wish to be somewhere else or to have the place where you are be some other way. And we're constructing an intrigue around that. all the myriad forms your life takes, what is it to sort of stay grounded? To let something not know so that the knowing becomes apparent.

[33:51]

And Zen approaches it like a question that rather than giving us the answer, opens up the situation we're in the middle of. It's like we open to the energy. of the passion play of each situation, of each relationship. We open up to the flow of it. We don't demand that it become the stone of contentment and stillness. We open up and we feel it. We experience it. It's its energetic nature that reminds us of what life is.

[35:08]

And that's what shows us... Yes, indeed, it's a construct, but also the expression of being alive. It's as worthy of our devotion as some ideal we can create in the sanctity of spirituality. In Zen we say everyday life, everyday mind. is the way. But not because we can sanctify it in some way, but because it's literally vibrant and alive.

[36:18]

It's what we're made of. And it takes us way it's like it squeezes us no it's like its intensity disorders our own capacity to order and make our life predictable in out of that disorder our life appears So it just occurred to me, now that didn't make any sense at all.

[37:27]

So could I say that another way? I just come back from teaching at a Zen group in Ireland. some controversy arose. Even in the pure world of Zen, controversies arise. You know, I could watch the different people involved. Each one, like Roshaman, had their own version of the truth, their own version of order, their own version of virtue, which, of course, they were the upholder of. But when you put them all together, all you... All there was was disorder. But that's what we got. And our mind will go towards, which is the real story?

[38:31]

Which is the true story? Who is the real upholder of virtue? Because that's how we're going to resolve this. It's not how we resolve things. We hold the complete disorder of it all. Everybody has their own version of reality. Or several. This is holding the flow, you know? This is what the paradox is. As we follow the straight line of the discipline, the disorder and the flow of our life singularly and collectively manifests. And can we stay connected?

[39:31]

This is what the word samadhi means. Staying connected to the flow, continuous contact. we just see it for what it is? And can we do that together? See it for what it is? As young men would say, it's like stepping off a hundred foot pole. just stepping from something you've constructed into this formless, dynamic being.

[40:35]

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, visit SSCC.org. and click giving.

[40:57]

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