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. Good morning. The first day of our first session of this practice period. Almost inevitably, as we start Sashin, there's a quickening. Something happens within us. Something is stimulated. Whether it's stimulated by excitement, dread, concern, something about knowing that we're about to enter.

[01:06]

We're about to be immersed in something greater than the workings of our own mind and heart. We're about to take up a request that's a very interesting mix between the request of the structure, the schedule that we have chosen to place ourselves in, and then an inner request, that request that brought us here, that request that's now percolating through our being. So together these requests stimulate. And there's a quickening.

[02:10]

Something's activated. And then this moment of being activated being stimulated is a delicate moment are we prompted to create the appropriate defensive strategies that will ensure our survival our comfort or whatever else within us needs to be protected protected in the service of a preservation, a reassurance? And how does this blend with, how does this interact with that extraordinary impulse, that extraordinary intention

[03:31]

that extraordinary vow that arises for us. Yes, I will. I will do this. I will be this. I will enter fully. How does a human being do this? This entering fully. cut off as profane whatever arisings arise in the service of self-preservation? In our diligence, do we try to separate from them? And of course, when we lay it out that boggly, we already know the answer to those questions.

[04:43]

It's obvious. How could an all-embracing way ask us to cut something off? How could an awakening way ask us to suppress? And then how do we negotiate the way in the midst of these quickened arisings? How do we engage in that delicate matter of wholehearted, 100% commitment in the midst of self-preservation? Because if we don't know it, we'll quickly realize That when we open up to 100% commitment, the quickening quickens.

[05:45]

How is the way navigated, negotiated under these circumstances? So Joshu brought this question to nonsense. And hundreds of years later, Dogen Zenji said, this question, this question of negotiating away, this is crucial. This is a crucial point in Arsashin, the beginning. This is a crucial point. in our practice doesn't matter whether you've been practicing six months thirty years this is the beginning this is the first time you've sat this issue this is the first time you've experienced this quickening a body and mind

[07:07]

Maybe you have your stash of chocolate or pistachios or Italian espresso coffee set to save you. Or maybe you think, no big deal. Done it before. It'll be fine. before the particulars of that, before knowing what will arise for us, out of our own coping strategies, in our own wholehearted vow. What mind, with what attitude will they be engaged?

[08:25]

So Joshua asks Nansen, his teacher, what is the way? Maybe he's laying himself bare in front of this person he's practiced with for a long time. Maybe he's simply dumbstruck by the enormity of practice. And after all his years of practice, still it rises up like an impenetrable barrier. The story is it took Joshua a long time. breakthrough.

[09:29]

And then fortunately for him, he lived a long time more. He lived to 120. And interestingly, became revered for the fact that it took him a long time. that if there's such a thing as four horses, you know, everything from lightning fast to incredibly slow, he was the essence of the fourth horse. But either way, fast or slow, either way, self-preservation or courageous what is the mind what is the heart what is the initiating attention awareness that reveals all this rather than just seduces us into the entanglements it creates this is asking about way seeking mind

[10:57]

This is Joshua's question to Nansen. This is Nansen's question to Nansen. This is Dogen's question to us. This is Dogen's question to Dogen. This is our question to ourselves. What is it? It's being quickened. Does it flutter from one side to the other from courageous immersion to dedicated self-preservation? Or does self-preservation win over in the cold mornings and courageous immersion arise as the day warms?

[12:03]

does a long period of zazen start with courageous devotion and about three quarters way through when your knees ache like hell is it singularly the activity of self-preservation either way whatever way what is waste seeking mind And even though we may say, isn't this just a mind game? Isn't this just operating at the level of cognitive functioning? That's not its intention. Its intention is to leave us dumbstruck.

[13:12]

that we're living this life. We're immersed in this life. We love this life. We hate this life. We're afraid of this life. We yearn for more of this life. This life saddens us. This life delights us. This life mystifies us. have all these casual unexamined assumptions about me. And we have this deep, passionate, courageous, noble intention to awaken in the midst of it. The question itself sweeps away glib responses.

[14:30]

The question itself sweeps away some mechanical trite notion of how to do zazzar. It sees through some notion, do this technique and get it right. In the vastness of existence, how can right and wrong hold sway as some ultimate truth? How could Joshu be anything other than the slow horse? the whole earth the endless activity of human consciousness there's a con where a student approaches the teacher and says

[15:56]

Could you say something about what can't be spoken of? He says, sure. So like this, Joshu approaches Nansen, presents him the question of existence, human existence. And Nansen says, sure, I've got an answer. Ordinary mind. What is the way? What is negotiating the way? Ordinary mind. That which arises in this moment illustrates, exemplifies the workings of this glorious me, the workings of the human condition, and the nature of all existence.

[17:01]

Here, now, no need to conjure up some purified special state that has eradicated the profanities of self-clinging if we ponder for a moment that what arises now is simply the fruits of past actions unless we can go back and change those actions in the past these fruits are what they are but how they are related to. What is it to be available to the arising and how to relate to them?

[18:19]

So Joshua asks, how will I know? How will I know ordinary mind in its manifestation? And Nansen says, well, it's not a matter of knowing or not knowing. Joshua says how will I know that how will I know it's not a matter of knowing or not knowing if I don't try we bring forth our effort to discover how to bring forth effort

[19:33]

we bring forth our effort to go beyond bringing forth effort. We create problems, we set up obstacles, and we relate to our problems and our obstacles. We set up what needs to be achieved and what needs to be avoided. We work with that, we engage that, we notice that, we loosen and open to that to discover the utility and the futility Where's the starting place?

[20:46]

Ordinary mind. It's enticing in the quickening. It's enticing in the arising of the formidable imperative that we set forth. make something happen, to stop something happening. We've learned by now that when the mind is calmer, that when there's more attentiveness, they stimulate a sense of presence. conducive to awakeness.

[21:52]

Surely, we should set forth in bringing calmness and attentiveness as quickly as possible into the moment. Nonsense says to Joshua, Be careful. If you set forth like that, it separates you from it. Stay right here. As Hakkowin would say, what's wrong with hell? So, it's hell. Stay forth, stay here with this karmic arising.

[23:00]

Let whatever arises arise here. Let whatever arises be experienced here. Let whatever arises be just what it is. And in the yogic workings of practice, this great paradox. The very nature of awareness is that the obscurations the delusions that normally arise in clinging to what arises staying here accepting not being carried away is the alchemy that brings forth awareness. Setting forth with the agenda that we consider to be the strategy for conjuring up awareness is a strategy of the self according to the dictates of the self.

[24:23]

So in some ways this is about attending to the energy that arises. How is it engaged? It's quite usual as we start Sashin that this energy is drawn into Our dedication. Our dedication is to be part of everything. To sit with everything. If heaven arises, heaven arises.

[25:38]

If hell arises, hell arises. This is not an indulgent whatever. Then just wallow a rind in the makeshift constructions of those states of minds. This is to experience them. This is with the immensity of Joshu's what is the way. This is with the immensity of a brief human life trying to discover how to live. This is as delicate as simply noticing.

[26:43]

If the mind is holding on more to a defined world, the concrete notions of here and there and inside and outside of this and that, then noting. noting this is a very specified, identified expression of existence. This arising within the world, according to me, is endorsed, invalidated as something that exists. Nagarjuna said, when it's experienced as impermanent, Bodhi mind, way-seeking mind naturally comes into being.

[28:04]

Let it come into being When it isn't grasped, when it isn't turned into something, when it isn't perpetuated with associated thoughts and feelings, impermanence becomes evident. Sometimes we might get that over the sequence of a day. You notice that the same body that at one point in the day felt heavy and creaky and 180 years old, at another point is 10 years old, is light, is energized. That a mind state that was stormy and cloudy and cold

[29:18]

gave way to a mind state that was sunny and warm with a gentle breeze. So even like this we can welcome in impermanence. To sit like this ordinary being what on earth is ordinary other than the half noticed half experienced fleeting stories of me once it's brought into awareness more than ordinary, it's extraordinary.

[30:26]

This way is the heart of Gigi Yuzamai. The self arises, the self is seen and engaged as the content of now. So at the start of Sashin, at the start of each period of Zazen, we remind ourselves. Now what is it I'm doing here again? Oh yeah, right. Being present for whatever arises. Willing to experience rather than impose to not know what's supposed to happen and be fully available for what happens oh yeah right how does that translate into body how does that translate into breath how does it translate into

[32:00]

a mental disposition of availability, of willingness, of not knowing. Each time we come to sit diligently, patiently, we recreate, we remember, we bring back to be that mind, that heart, that body, that breath. That touchstone that always has something to teach us. It doesn't matter if you've done that a hundred thousand times.

[33:04]

slow and steady. Not knowing is never exhausted. With this practice, as we sit, as we come into this delicate attention, we start to connect to the subtle body of Zazen. The body of being that arises as we settle in the connectedness. The body of being that has an energetic form maybe indistinct from just the concepts of body we usually operate from. My arms, my legs, my back. When we sit sazen for a while, we lose left leg and right leg.

[34:18]

There's just some energetic being somewhere below the navel. As we settle into Zazen, we lose left shoulder and right shoulder and settle into an experience of being beyond mind concepts. As we settle into our posture at the start of the period, this initiation, this remembering of the request, quickens, invites, stimulates the Buddha body of Zazen. The Buddha body, the body beyond my ideas entwined, infused, colored by my likes and dislikes, my psychological connections, my psychosomatic notions, which are also not so formulated in thought.

[35:41]

We start to reconnect to the breath. We attend in a way, we start to discover the difference between the mind breathing the breath to the breath breathing the mind. These are the discoveries we've made in Zazen, inviting them as we sit. They don't avail themselves to a busy mind that's filled with thought. They don't avail themselves to a mind, to an effort that's based on its fixed ideas. They're a remembering.

[36:46]

They're a rediscovery. I don't know, maybe that sounds exotic. Maybe you feel like, I've never had that. What are you talking about? It's hard to sit for more than 10 minutes. and not have left and right leg disappear. Even when we go into thought, the usual body disappears.

[37:47]

Please, don't think this is some exotic, faraway practice. This is as close as your next inhale. And here's what Mary Oliver had to say about it. Would it be better to sit in silence, to think everything, to feel everything, to say nothing? This is the way of the orange gourd. This is the habit of the rock in the river over which the water pours all day and all night. But the nature of man and woman is not the nature of silence.

[38:54]

Words are the thunders of the mind. Words are the refinement of the flesh. Words are the responses to the thousand curvaceous moments. We just manage it. Sweet and electric. Words flow from the brain and out the gate of the mouth. We make books of them. But out of hesitations and grammar, we're slow and choosy. This is the world. So please, as we initiate our ridiculous effort to awaken.

[40:00]

Consider. Consider Nansen's response to Joshu. Consider in Joshua's courageous, stubborn, what is the way? Consider this life you call me. Take a look, feel, sense in the body, in the emotions. Watch those mysterious unwindings of your psychosomatic being as you sit. And don't waste time trying to manufacture something special.

[41:17]

And don't waste time trying to conjure up some great knowing. Sit in the middle. Be. This extraordinary practice that fully embraces wisdom and compassion. The wisdom... of this is what it is. The compassion that the tender workings of a human life are being witnessed and held and allowed to be intimate. What an amazing sweet opportunity.

[42:21]

This is the world. This is the me. This is the us. 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.

[42:55]

@Transcribed_UNK
@Text_v005
@Score_98.02