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. Yesterday we tried moving this speaker over here. Moved it over and then discovered it never worked there anyway. Apparently this is here for its sheer beauty. It's a little like the challenge of our practice. You know, what do you set about changing and what do you set about adjusting to? It was my idea to move it, so I think that says... I think my notion is that there are enough

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unsolvable problems and challenges in life, that if some of them are solvable, go ahead and solve them. That's why I recommend working with your body. You'll have enough challenges in Zazen, you don't have to add in extra. Believe it or not, today I'm going to start with a con. Yon Men asked, I don't ask you about before the 15th day. Try to say something about after the 15th day. Yon Men answered himself, Every day is a good day. greeting poems about the weather.

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Wonderfully, another one turned up on my doorstep. Apparently, Merwin has a direct connection to Tassajara, to the rain. To my mind, it's something about the human capacity to pause and to let go of a certain level of intrigue, a way in which we're entangled with something and it's stimulating our likes and dislikes. It's bringing forth some mysterious replay of the patterns of thoughts and feelings that have become the personality we are.

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And to pause and to shift. As I was leaving my cabin this morning to do the morning jundo, I thought, I don't want it to be raining. It was like a beautiful thought. It was like a three-year-old child, you know. I don't want rain. Messing with an umbrella. Slashing in the puddles because you can't see them in the dark. But some things you just get. you want. You can wear your rubber boots, carry a flashlight. But I figured if Dogen had wanted me to carry a flashlight during the morning jungle, he would have written that in the Shingi.

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Which hand to carry it in. So I don't. And in that moment, the thought was just curious enough to cause some kind of pause and appreciation. Hmm. Look at that. That sutra I quoted yesterday, the Vitaka Santana, you know, before it gets down to that deadly line of and with your will crush your mind, it extols the virtue, the beauty, the elegance of awareness.

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That it's like a mirror. It just sees what is just as it is. And this quality of seeing what is just as it is illuminates makes evident reveals the path this quality of pause and appreciate naturally arising and yesterday I was trying to talk about You know, zazen intensifies the activity of being. There's something about sitting upright, sitting still, that quickens, that makes more evident the activity of being the person we are.

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And yesterday I was trying to talk about remembering, rediscovering something we know about how to relate to that that expresses this pause and appreciate. This steadying. this discovering uprightness, this discovering a willingness to be, this allowing an intimacy of body, breath, and state of mind that reveals. It reveals the request of just sitting. It reveals the request

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non-doing that's the heart of Zazen at least in the Soto tradition and you know it may be as we start to glimpse that request the level of mental activity, the restlessness in the body, the stuckness, contractedness of the breath, make evident that we're not in a state of wide open flowing ease. Okay, so. still the request can refine the effort with which they're engaged.

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It's not so much to say that in just noticing somehow magically all the turmoil that exists in our body and mind will evaporate. It's just to remind us of the nature of the effort with which we engage it. Then we can start with the diligence, with the discipline of attending the body, attending the breath. And the more we do this, the more we check in. You know, we can stray one way. One way is that we've just wandered off into the intrigues.

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The other way is now we're involved in some determined struggle. Something that's happening means to stop happening. And something that's not happening should be happening. But both these minds miss the fundamental point. So very helpful. I almost said essential. But I'll hold off on that. Very helpful. ingredient in Zazen is this refining effort. The willingness to experience this very mind is Buddha. Opening up the presence.

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and of course under the influence of the quickening of Zazen mind and body will manifest in a thousand different ways at least sometimes it feels like the body is liquid energy like you're not even sitting on the cushion you're just floating slightly above it sometimes the body feels like a bag of old rocks heavy and that cushion which at other times felt so comfortable and welcoming feels like another bag of old rocks sometimes the body feels creaky and stiff Sometimes the mind feels clear.

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There's a sense of space, a sense of presence. Sometimes it feels like it's the antithesis of that. It's dense, it's opaque. Young man says, every day is a good day. Every mind's a good mind. Every mind is what's happening now. Every mind is an opportunity for this pause and recognizing what is and rediscovering the nature of practice. In that moment, in that mind, And I don't mean to say this is a cognitive process.

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You figure out, okay, what will I do now? As we settle, this is wordless. This is experience revealing and responding to what's being noticed. So this mind is agile. This mind doesn't know what's supposed to happen, isn't caught in a mechanical truck. And of course, to bring forth this mind, you can't keep running a dialogue at the same time. If you're sort of letting go of the story that's running through your head and sort of not letting go.

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The agility that can notice and open in response. The perceptiveness, oh, this is what's happening. These faculties that are innate in our being are not so active, they're not so available. if mind is still holding on to some other object, some other thinking. So we notice the holding. What is it to practice with this? And the very holding becomes yeast for this activity.

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The very picking up the request to engage the holding is enlivening. it reintroduces that agility, that adeptness. So when we consider young men's code, we can consider it entirely in the context of Zazen. Of course we can consider it in the context of our life. But in Zashin, it's helpful to consider it in the context of Zazen. This enlivening quality. You know, and this is the nature of the short Tokusense. You bring what's happening.

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Maybe you bring how you're practicing with it. If you don't have a clue how to practice with it, that's fine. That's what you bring. Sometimes not having a clue how to respond to something is precious. At least We're not insisting. It fits within old strategies. Sometimes as we taste the depth of the request of practice and can't find a response, we're being invited. Can you step outside of who you usually are, how you usually are, how you usually

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respond and discover something new. So sometimes in our practice, what might seem to us emotionally and even psychologically to be a pitfall, a failure, an insurmountable obstacle, As we work with it, as we engage it, something can be revealed. Every day is a good day. Every mind is a good mind. Of course, if it does happen to be painful, if it does seem

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in a very persuasive way to present a sense of failure, a sense of obstacle, stuckness. It's tempting to get caught in that quality of judgment. This is why it's so essential to sustain the basic practice you know after we discover after we remember the subtle workings of being present and I would say every time you sit down I would also say every time in Zazen that you space out and wander off coming back, this re-attunement, this rediscovering body, rediscovering breath, rediscovering mind.

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There's no rush in Zazan. You don't rush back to where you were. You now experience where you are, how you are, what you are. This staying with what's arising. This continually returning to the fundamental point of practice. It refines our effort. It sustains this agile mind. When our effort becomes mechanical, the mind is dulled.

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Much more susceptible to thoughts creeping in. Our mind is extraordinarily imaginative. creative if we simply say be this uneventful mechanical operation it'll find its own entertainment when we engage this mind constantly changing, unfolding of the moment, the very same capacity constantly discovers and reveals the Dharma. Oh, when you're enmeshed in agitated mind, the body becomes agitated.

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the breath becomes shallow. It's harder to focus. When you notice agitated mind, when you notice the unpleasantness of agitated mind, when you let the belly soften, and rather than resist or react to that, just allow it to be breathed in and be breathed out. Something other than just what agitated mind creates is brought into being. Every day is a good day. Every experience offers itself up as a way to reveal the Dharma.

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There's a pattern that's consistent both the early sutras and in the Zen school. In the early sutras, like in the Anapanasati sutra, it talks about connecting, calming, Inquiring. In the Zen school, roughly speaking, there's connecting through the assertion of something like Mu. There's connecting through dropping off. Don't know. Willingness to experience without an agenda. And then in both schools, as this initiation happens, then there is inquiry. The Dharma is revealed through directly apprehending the nature of what arises.

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In some ways, the basic practice doesn't change. Attending to body, attending to breath, attending to mind. But it's like the truth we know. We all know we're going to die. But as we attend to it, as we work with it, the subtlety, the depth changes. The simple statement doesn't change. but the understanding, the insight related to it, deepens and ripens. Similarly with our Zazen practice, the fundamental practice doesn't change, but the subtlety, the depth, the efficacy of that fundamental practice ripens. We can call this refining our effort. We can call this seeing and feeling more clearly the request of Zazen.

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So as we settle into Shishin looking to what's going on and how it's being related to. Is this effort, is how this being related to, is this expressing the fundamental point of practice, just be what is? And how whatever technique is being involved Is it in the service of just being what is, or is it creating its own agenda? This is the mind. This is the inquiry that reveals the Dharma.

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And through the nature of their traditions, when you look at the early sutras, then they lay out like the Satipatthana does, you know? The hindrances, the Four Noble Truths, the Sense Fields, the Divine Abodes, the Seven Factors of Awakening. Look at the Zen School. It lays out different categories of cons. And often in the Zen school, it doesn't give you many concepts on which to hang your head. It hints, every day is a good day. What is there to say about that? What part of that don't you understand?

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Every day is a good day, and yet moment after moment with our attitude, with our engagement, we can resist, we can refute that statement. And so the nature of short docusign is it challenges you. Okay, in the midst of all this intrigue, in the midst of all this drama, can there be a matter-of-factness that just says, okay, and what's happening? Uh-huh. And what is it to practice with it? Mm-hmm.

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And for good measure, what happens when you practice with it? This mind, this effort, this form of engagement takes the very human basic impulse to engage and it uses it as an ally. We hear sound, we identify it. We see object, we name it. It's the nature of our consciousness to engage what's arising. Can that attribute of engagement become an ally in awareness? What is it to practice with this? Not, do I like it, do I not like it?

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Does it remind me of other things I've experienced? Does it stimulate patterns of emotion, psychological identities that I have? Well, of course it does. In a wonderful, exquisite degree to which the mind is settled or unsettled, the more settled, the less it does that. Then should the effort be singularly to be totally settled? Interestingly, not exactly. As we practice, we discover if the mind's greatly agitated, a lot is obscured. But it doesn't have to be totally settled for this inquiry to be active.

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Every day, every mind is a good day. This is what young men say. Whatever arises in mind, notice, acknowledge. It doesn't matter what you bring the short togasan. What matters is, is it being noticed? This is what's arising. And that's something different from being lost in it. This is reality. Huitzu Suzuki told a funny story once at Zen Center while I was giving a talk. He was saying one of his practitioners came to talk to him. And the practitioner told him a story. And the consequence of this story was

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that this person thought all their problems in their life would be solved if they had more money. And Huizu, you know, being the generous-hearted person he is, after they finished talking, he went and bought a lottery ticket. He thought, I'll go, and if I win the lottery, I'll give him the money, and then all his problems will be solved. And then he says, and then, of course, I laughed at myself. He didn't buy the lottery ticket, but from inside our definition of reality, certain things appear, certain statements. If I win the lottery, everything will be wonderful. We can't perfect conditioned existence. Conditioned existence recreates conditioned existence.

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We can wake up to it. We can see the mind that says that. That doesn't mean we don't try to fix the problems that arise. We don't ever say, well, what would we like if we move the speaker over here? Would that work better? Doesn't mean such things are irrelevant, are not part of our repertoire of response. But in a bigger way, we hold conditioned existence and say, what's happening? What is it to respond to it with the mind and heart of practice? Some young man pushes in front of us this great iron mountain with his statement that there's no way to take hold of.

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Our human life says to us endlessly, every day is not a good day. Every mind is not a good mind. We arrived at that conclusion when we reached the terrible tools and learned how to say no. And then drove everybody around us crazy by saying no. a young man puts in front of us, what would it be to say yes? Is it possible to take the learning of a human life, the deep ingrained habits, and meet them and see them for what they are?

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rather than simply living according to what they dictate. So in seeing the state of mind, we start to glimpse how to work with mind. Each and every time we sit, Careful attention to body. Careful attention to breath. Careful attention to mind. Noticing the state of mind. Noticing the activity of mind. And maybe as a last resort, noticing the content. Actually, usually the content helps us see the state.

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Noticing how the content is engaged. Does it flow through? Like the sign of the creek? Or is it dense and sticky? And what is it to practice if that's the case? This agility, this willingness to engage, not in response to our karmic patterns, not expressing our karmic patterns, but expressing the original mind of being. This is the Iron Mountain.

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as high as the Himalayas that young man pushes in front of us. Fortunately, we only have to take it on step by step, breath by breath, moment by moment. We're not being asked to swallow the mountain in one bite. Just chew at it. One mouthful at a time. One exhale at a time. And the function of short sazan. You bring whatever you bring. As much as you can, I'm not sure if this will make sense to you, but I'm going to say it.

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As much as you can, come as nobody. We have our social convention for interaction. I'm me and I interact like this. Can what you present be more matter of fact? This is what's happening. It's beyond good or bad, something to be proud of or ashamed of. It's just what's happening. You just present it. Once I was doing Doka San, someone come in, and he took off all his clothes at the door.

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And then he sat down. And I said, it's not that simple. And he got up and put his clothes back on. I'm not suggesting you do that, by the way. It's being done. When I do say this, I experienced it as just straightforward practice. Just bringing the moment as it is. And the brevity... When we have a long story to tell, the brevity is a real hardship.

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When we're just meeting the moment, that can be presented quite concisely. Viral points meeting. Presentation response. So this con is inexhaustible. the verse lays claim to marvelous attributes but they don't really matter there's something that if we can take it to heart this unmanageable human life

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becomes less of a heartbreak. This unending mind that we sit with in Zazen becomes something other than example of failure. We can start to taste directly This mind is Buddha mind. This quality of what's happening now and the response, what is it to practice with it. It turns the Dharma wheel. It reactivates the vow of practice. And as we sit with this and it becomes part

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of the very activity of our life, the same way our breath does. This vow is not just a nice sentiment that we've adopted in our life. It becomes as integral as our breath. Recently I saw a movie called Billy Elliot. It's an English movie about a little boy who grows up close to where you grew up, in the coalfields in the middle of England, and he wants to be a dancer. Anyway, it's charming. But at one point, his mother died, and he's talking about his mother. Think to a social worker or someone.

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And the social worker says, your mother was a very special person, wasn't she? And he stops, looks at her with a puzzled look, and says, no. She was my mom. No. She was too close to be special. She was too close to be sound. exalted being separate from my being. As we activate breath after breath the vow of practice, it's nothing special. It's not some exalted virtue. It becomes like our breath, like our heartbeat. How else would we live a human life other than experience it?

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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 sfcc.org and click giving.

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