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. Good evening. So let's start by sitting for a moment, a couple of moments. And let me offer you a breathing exercise, just in establishing your posture and becoming aware of your body, uprightness, letting your shoulders widen and relax, front of your body open from your groin to your throat. Your arms and hands relax.

[01:00]

Deliberate position of the fingers and the thumbs. Left on top of right. Left fingers on top of right. Thumb tip slightly touching. Not so much about doing it right as letting them come alive. softly and slowly breathing out, extending the exhale. And then at the end of the exhale, let the chest, let the diaphragm, let the stomach completely relax and let the inhale happen. And then just repeat that five times. And then just let whatever happens, happen.

[03:16]

Just staying present and open and experiencing without an agenda. Thank you.

[05:09]

When you go to practice in a monastery or go on retreat, there's two very beneficial conditions that are set up under those circumstances. And one is that you step out of your usual life, your usual surrounds, and to a large extent, you step out of your usual habits of behavior. And also, the whole environment supports and encourages and reminds you to meditate, at least it's intended to, whether you take it that way or not. But practicing in an urban environment, it asks of us to discover a robust internal commitment, involvement, intentionality about practice. So how do we initiate that?

[06:14]

How do we sustain that? How do we hold... some of the subtleties I was trying to talk about last week. Last week I talked a lot, a lot, about noticing. I managed to use that word a lot. And part of what my agenda was is that noticing is not trying to dictate the experience. Noticing is not trying to cultivate or conjure up some special state of mind. It's a very simple, immediate event, involvement, that we're all quite capable of. Pretty much regardless of the state of mind or emotion that we're in.

[07:18]

The capacity to just notice is right there. And something in noticing expresses what's called in Buddhism the non-dual aspect of practice. Everything just is what it is. Nothing to gain, nothing to lose. Suzuki Roshi, the founder of San Francisco Zen Center said, we practice with Mahayana mind, this non-dual mind. And we practice Hinayana practice. We practice specifically. We practice purposefully. We practice intentionally. We look at the conditioned nature of what's going on and respond to it. So in that little meditation we just did, to start off with a way to initiate, a way to...

[08:25]

bring ourselves into presence. A specific, deliberate involvement and then allow whatever is there to just be itself. In a way, to start with the purposefulness that sets the stage for the non-dual. I hope that makes some sense to you. if it didn't well maybe maybe that's okay too I talked about noticing as simple in its momentary involvement and challenging in sustaining that involvement.

[09:27]

It's one thing to notice the moment, it's another thing to try to sustain noticing what's happening in contrast to getting caught up in it. And getting caught up in it is to enact the agendas of the self, of me. What we want, what we don't want, and all that springs forth from that. in that noticing disrupts the activity of self. It both gives us a glimpse of freedom, liberation, that we can find exhilarating, energizing, sometimes unnerving. I was talking to someone recently, and they were talking about an experience they had. on retreat, which wasn't a very intense schedule, but they were being very diligent about their mindfulness and just being present for each experience.

[10:36]

And then they said, and then I had a kind of unnerving sort of vertical. It was like I was stopping being me and it was unsettling. I was getting dizzy. There's a way in which me and the world of me, according to me, has its own grinding familiarity. And you could say the challenge of practice and the opportunity of practice is to shift from being grounded in me to being grounded in direct experience. And if we can hold that concept, that notion, that principle. And then in holding that principle, quite literally, keep returning to it, quite literally keep remembering it and being guided by it as we engage what's happening.

[11:47]

It's like that principle initiates the experience of the moment as something that doesn't have to be a particular way, but is requesting experiencing it directly. And then, the very process of doing that has an influence. beyond what we might be intending to have happen or intending to not have happen. The influence is not simply the product of our intention. Another fundamental notion. a very significant way we bring in what you might call the internalized request of practice so that as we meet the variety of activities of our day intentionally this engagement of noticing is enacting the notion

[13:26]

Every situation is a situation for mindfulness. Every state of mind, every interaction with another person, every environment. It's like we create within our own workings this robust process. You know, often what happens for us when we go on retreat, sashin, or going to a monastic environment, we come to savor, and they're worth savoring because they have a quality to them. Those moments of settled concentration and clarity. As your opportunities for habitual action are stripped away, and you're left in a more naked state with the moment, the loss of familiarity and comfort of habit causes its own disturbance.

[14:36]

So all the more sweet when you have these moments of deep settledness and the arising of ease. I'm doing it. but beyond the notion of doing it, just the sukha and dukkha, the pleasantness, the sukha and pitti, physical and mental joy that arises. So in retreat we can become, or a sushin, or in monastic environment, we can start setting up some... some new standards for our life in those regards. But in a way, fortunately, in our everyday life, we're not so likely to drop into a deep serenity.

[15:42]

And in a strange way, practicing in an urban environment can help us to stay closer to this non-dual approach. Okay. Practice with this state of mind. Okay. Practice with this interaction. Okay. Practice in this environment. So I'm not surrounded by redwoods in, you know, a deep stillness. I'm in the middle of the city and there's traffic noise. Okay. And that's evoking whatever it evokes. Okay. That's what it is right now. And then, the deliberateness. The deliberateness of persistently coming back. Of just finding within your day some way of encouraging yourself to come back into the process of noticing.

[16:56]

Separating or not being lost in the intrigue of the content of your experience. Engaging the process, not being lost in the content. So the mindfulness exercise that we offered in the small group teas before dinner was each day or more than once a day, do something that's not habitual. It can be how you put your clothes on in the morning. It can be when you're eating, hold the fork in the other hand. Just...

[17:59]

both to realize everything's an opportunity for practice, and there's a way we can continually explore how life becomes habituated. And when we disrupt the habit just the same way as it's disrupted in a monastic setting, we can disrupt it when you eat lunch. Not to have some great consequence. but just to let something stimulate beginner's mind. Oh, this is new. And how is it? How is this new thing? So, I offer that to you if you want to also explore this week, this aspect of mindfulness. of bringing forth non-habit response.

[19:02]

And also offered in the spirit of to play with it. Someone said they had just moved back into living in the building, and in the building we have a tradition. There's an altar outside each bathroom. Before you go into that bathroom, you bow to the altar. And being a man, they had never gone into the woman's bathroom, and so they hadn't bowed to the altar outside the woman's bathroom. But they decided they would, just as they passed it, and noticed that that had its own unique response. It was different from the habit of bowing at the altar outside the man's bathroom. just to tweak your life a little bit with a kind of playfulness, exploration.

[20:17]

Another thing I'd like to talk about is in the early texts, there is this initiation into practice in one way or another, whether it's through describing how to work with the breath or cultivating, noticing as a continuous practice. And after the initiation, quite soon, what's brought up to our attention is the hindrances to awareness. And I have to confess that I used to have an aversion to teaching that part because I thought, who needs to be reminded of how it's difficult?

[21:26]

It's all too obvious. And it's kind of discouraging to get it stuck in your face. I find it much more helpful, personally, and also in teaching, to think that each of us is making our best effort. Each of us is involved intensely in trying to be happy and trying to avoid suffering. Not that we're successful at it, but there's a deep... commitment to that arising from the depths of our psychological life. And to hold that with a tender patience and kindness.

[22:31]

But I would say reflecting on the hindrances is not in contradiction to that. I would say that yes. Maybe I would even say that that's almost like a prerequisite to looking at the hindrances. Because almost all of us are so prone to self-criticism, you know, that they have that reflection. Oh, how I'm behaving, my patterns of thought, my patterns of thinking have woven together in this deep, sincere effort to live this life happily and free from suffering. As best we can, hold that thought, allow that to be a significant notion

[23:41]

in how we relate to what comes up for us. So that if we look at the hindrances, we look at them as a teaching. And here's how I tend to trip myself up. Here's how I tend to thwart my own happiness and continue my own unhappiness, my own suffering. But as we do this exploration, I would say to watch, to not let it become another version of self-criticism. Even when we're asking of ourselves, okay, knuckle done, be more diligent. Okay, make that extra effort of discipline

[24:43]

and dedication. Even when we're asking that of ourselves, as much as we can to not encumber it with self-criticism. But a more pragmatic notion that we work with conditioned existence. And the challenge is to do it skillfully. And this is the great gift of noticing. The more we bring noticing into our lives, the more our notions about what's going on is founded on direct experience rather than the narrative of our life which arises out of the world according to me. And this is the great challenge of practice. Because the world according to me and the narrative that arises out of it is so compellingly so.

[25:47]

We infuse it with psychological significance and we endorse it with our emotional energy. And if I feel that strong about it, it must be true. Not necessarily so. certainly indicative that for you there's something powerful in that description of what's happening. The description that arises out of direct noticing helps allow for another description, definition, of existence. And quite literally, this is the work of a lifetime. As long as we're generating the fruits of karma, this is our practice.

[27:03]

So with that background, the hindrances, in the classic sense, They're quite obvious. We get caught up in what we want. We get caught up in what we want to avoid. When we're not busy doing either of those, when we're not busy investing our energy in either of those, it's like we don't know what to do with ourselves, so we feel sluggish. Kind of heaviness. or the inverse of not knowing what to do and feeling sluggish, the inverse of it is to feel restless. You know? Angitated and restless. What should I be doing? You know? And then the fifth one is doubt.

[28:08]

Doubt. Am I doing the right thing? How do I know it's the right thing? How do I know I'm just not making up another story like all the other stories I've making up? And how do I know this practice is the best practice I should be doing? Maybe I should be doing something more vivacious. Improv, theater, whatever. in the classic teaching, those five modalities, attraction, aversion, sluggishness, anxiety, restlessness as a category, and then duck. And then one way to practice with them is to... You know, you could ask something like, well, okay, how does desire, how does grasping, how does wanting express itself in my life?

[29:29]

And what's it like when it does? And is there a pattern to it? I mean... Do there some things I want a little, but when they don't happen, I just shrug my shoulders and forget it? Are there some things that I want that nigh the way at me? In their absence of being fulfilled, I feel like part of me is missing or can't be fully alive. to watch. How often do those sorts of thoughts or feelings come up as I go through my day? And aversions, you know? How often do they come up? Little ones or gross ones? Are there particular people that you have a grudge with?

[30:38]

some kind of aversion, some kind of resistance to. And what about the... The thing about aversion is it arises out of discriminating mind. So you can start to use discriminating mind. What about them is it that I don't like? It's this quality. What about that quality don't I like? Do I have a resistance and aversion to? And do I have it all the time, or do I just have it when I'm particularly grumpy? Or do I have it about this person, but if this person behaves that way, I'm totally cool

[31:38]

Because I like this person. So I tolerate it in them. Actually, it's kind of cute in them. But in this person, no. It's really not okay. It's annoying. It's inappropriate. And how much mental space and mental time do these things take up? Can we notice? Can the innocence, can the simplicity, can the directness, can the non-agenda of noticing be an agent in this exploration? Can we not lose track of that kind, patient,

[32:41]

acceptance of human karma, of our own individual being that gets entangled in these thoughts and feelings. And without losing track of that, can we see the energy? Can we see the play, the involvement of attraction and aversion? Small and large. Because usually we tie up a lot of energy in those two modalities. And then the other one we tie up a lot of energy in is the restless anxiety.

[33:43]

Maybe it's very... obvious to you. It has a heightened expression. Maybe you have a hard time sleeping at night. Maybe a hard time sitting still. Sometimes it's like that. And then sometimes it's about noticing that it's not easy for the mind just to become simple. That there's an urgency there, looking for something to be urgent about. Someone was talking to me in Dokusan, and they said, and I was doing this activity that I really like,

[34:44]

It's like my favorite recreation. And in the middle of doing this activity, I noticed part of me was saying, and how long is this going to last and when will it be done? And just that contradiction. Here I am doing my favorite activity and still there's an urgency. Are we done yet? Can I go on to the next thing? And the more we can experience directly these three energies, attraction, aversion, and that kind of restlessness, the more we can experience them directly, the more sense we make to ourselves. Oh, okay. Well, if that's the kind of energy that's going through me, if that's the kind of involvement I'm getting caught up in, then my thoughts, my feelings, my behaviors, the choices I'm making about what to do with my time, or who to be with, or who not to be with, it sheds light on them.

[36:08]

And then there's another wonderful aspect to it, in addition to that, that light being shed on them. As we start to explore it, we start to experience something of the core energy of it. What's the stimulus of desire or aversion or anxiety? And as we start to sit, we can literally feel how that reverberates in our being. And that often can be a very helpful engagement. And then the other two, sluggishness. I think it's not uncommon. I'm being careful of the time.

[37:16]

I don't want to go too late. It's not uncommon when we do an all-day sitting or a seven-day sitting. And the preoccupation that energizes, that catches our energy, when that stops, it's almost like we don't know what to do with ourselves. And we become sluggish. Or... find it hard to stay awake in meditation. It's quite common and, you know, it's just how it is. That in some ways, of course, you're making up your whole subjective world. It's not an absolute truth.

[38:16]

None of it. So the doubt, is some part of it accurate? Well, no, it's not. So in a way, in practice, we talk about great doubt. But maybe in a more conventional sense, to recognize that how we're conjuring up the world is infused with moments of direct experiencing. All the judgments and assumptions we add to it are reflections of who we are as a conditioned person. And that the insight in looking at that is enormously informative.

[39:17]

And in a more subtle sense, and excuse me for rushing through this, in a more subtle sense, it is all subjective. It is all just relative truth. And in that sense, what we call in practice, great doubt. That there's an absence of absolute truth And everything that we, every assertion we make about reality is subject to doubt. So not holding on to any fixed idea. Attraction, aversion, restlessness.

[40:21]

risiness and doubt. And watching how they play out in our lives. Being careful not to turn them into self-criticism. And I would say, if you find yourself doing that, shift. shift over to noticing your self-critical tendencies. Acknowledge them, and as best you can, hold them with kindness. Remind yourself, this is my best effort at being happy and not suffering. Thank you.

[41:28]

May we fully enjoy the Dharma.

[41:54]

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