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. First of all, my apologies for my announcement this morning during after King King. Somehow I thought it was quite fitting, you know, Why don't you go outside and see something that isn't there? It happens only once in 150 years. You just had to search for it. You just had to see through the mind. The second day of sushin is often an interesting experience.

[01:11]

We can start to notice this shift in consciousness. Usually we're noticing more details. And then you get to notice the mind that relates to those details. Is it finding fault? Is it... maybe safely in others, you know. Finding Vulcan self is usually much more dangerous. Or is it finding beauty? In the early canon, you know, there's a place where someone asks Shakyamuni Buddha about effort. he uses the analogy of a musical instrument a stringed instrument no he says well if it isn't tuned tight enough you know the strings don't reverberate and create music and if it's tuned too tight no the notes are not harmonious

[02:35]

it's shooting just right it makes music it has something comes forth maybe embellishing it just a little bit something comes forth that nourishes this human life Or maybe it nourishes all life, and this is just the part we're concerned with. One of the old masters, in his description of zazen, he said, not opposing circumstances. The point of zazen is not to oppose what's happening.

[03:38]

maybe we could add, and not to be succumbed by it, not to just get caught up and lost in it. It occurs to me, somewhere in the territory of the second and third day, sooner for some people, this koan, not to oppose, not to succumb to it. How can that call forth an effort that harmonizes, that lets the whole process, that lets the human condition, that lets life in this mountain valley have beauty. And what is that process?

[04:47]

This is the beautiful koan of Zazen. This poem is ominously called, You Reading This, Be Ready. Starting here, What do you want to remember? How the sunlight creeps along the shining floor? How scent of old wood hovers? What softened sun came from outside and filled the air? Will you ever bring a better gift for the world than the breathing respect you carry everywhere you go? Are you waiting for this time to show you some better thoughts? When you turn around, starting here, lift this new glimpse that you find.

[05:52]

Carry into the evening all that you want from the day. This interval you've spent reading or hearing or sitting. Keep it for life. what can anyone give you greater than now starting here right in this room when you turn around turn around somehow the word shift makes more sense to my mind. But choose your own word. Not opposing, not succumbing. How to make that engagement an act of beauty.

[07:04]

Practically speaking, how do we make the deep request of practice, of zazen, that asks everything of us? How do we make it an attractive proposition? How do we make it a light that being the moth we are is attracted to? some of you have had the misfortune to hear me say in the past the combination of directed attention experiencing the experience that's being experienced and receptive attention it will be what it will be it arises

[08:20]

out of the multitude of causes and conditions. It isn't contained within the dictates of our dedicated and sincere practice. It's beauty, it's harmony, that evokes something within us. You could say appreciation, We could say gratitude, we could say brightening the mind and heart. Within another kind of language we could say we establish the grind of non-dual approach to practice. that we thoroughly get that there is not a right or a wrong way to do it.

[09:28]

There is not a successful or a failing way to do it. And yet, there can be resisting, controlling, or getting carried away. as the mind starts to shift, as the mind starts to engage more thoroughly what's now, these distinctions start to become evident. To notice. The beautiful thing about the verb notice is that right within it is an implication, not to grasp, not to resist, not to control, not to embroider with concepts, burden it with meaning, significance, but just to notice.

[10:57]

It's a light. And then to acknowledge. In one way, expressing, experiencing the experience. It's also using citta, using consciousness, that aspect of consciousness, discerning mind, using it as an ally. Sometimes when the mind is still constructing very tangible and substantial storylines, This acknowledging helps release some of the way where we have succumbed to the narrative.

[12:10]

It's almost like it lifts consciousness up out of being embedded in response. reaction to the details of now and then the turning can in addition to acknowledging experiencing the disposition of notice. With the disposition of not knowing this, but discovering this. And this has its versatility.

[13:26]

This can engage an impassioned experience. Something appears in the midst of availability to experiencing that sets in motion something of psychological, emotional significance. And the emotions arise. What is it to fully experience this? Is the dominant feature the adamant narrative? Is it a sense of contraction in the body?

[14:29]

Is it an energetic reverberation? some combination of all of those and then the experiencing to not oppose and to not succumb to discover the beauty, the harmony of awareness. Attending and seeing how it enlivens and calls forth to be a little bit grandiose Buddha mind.

[15:33]

state of consciousness that sees the path of liberation. The state of consciousness that sees that grasping and pushing away miss the vitality, the nourishment the appreciation of being alive. And then we can watch how this echoes through our own internal structure in our collective structure. We can even see it in nature. Like when you watch those mysterious movements of these massive flocks of birds.

[16:45]

You know, there's tens of thousands, and they're dancing in the air, creating beauty. No one bird is blowing a whistle and saying, okay, everybody go right. Now dip. not resisting the movement, not getting lost so that the interconnection isn't being experienced. Something original occurs. And as humans, we look at it and think, beautiful.

[17:49]

What is it we're finding beautiful? And then those moments of consciousness experienced more directly, but what's arising meets the moment, and they dance. It can be as simple as the one voice of chanting. I just had several discriminating thoughts about our chanting. The skillfulness of our practice is the non-duo, the beauty of its many shapes and forms and particulars.

[19:11]

And then we pick up, okay, now let's work with that. Let's decide to do this this way and not that way. Fetch wood, carry water. But when it's held in this deep appreciation, when something in us knows This can be engaged in a way that goes beyond affliction. Then even the particulars we engage it with. Okay, we're going to chant this like this. As an act of beauty.

[20:17]

As an act of appreciation of each other, of the tradition. This is that term I was referring to in the class, kanodoko. Usually it's given a kind of Kano doko is a traditional phrase which means responsive communion, the communication between Buddha and human beings. Moreover, in Zen Buddhism, rapport between the teacher and the disciple. Kano means response, do means way,

[21:23]

means interaction in other forms of Buddhism it's given the significance of through religious endeavor this interaction with awakening within as an act of veneration usually to the iconography of religion but in our Zen tradition everything is sacred And then how do we carry this beautiful sensibility into the nitty-gritty of Zazen?

[22:32]

Whereas we start to open, we start to let loose what's being suppressed. we start to be capable of more attention we start to notice the extraordinary activity of human consciousness and i would say even as you take your posture Can there be this attending in a way that's not some harsh demand, but more calling forth what it is to be a human body?

[23:46]

What it is to become sensitive to and connected to the physicality of a human body. What it is to be sensitive to and connected to the particulars of breath. Each time we sit down to rediscover, to renew, and to use Dogen Zenji's Yes, this is an intentional act. This is an act that's directed by conceptual merchants. But as we engage it, it opens to this careful attending.

[24:51]

in this careful attending, what's being experienced feels more like an invitation than an onerous task. If we make attending to the moment an onerous task, quickly it tires our sight. quickly embores us. The mind thinks, there's way better things to be thinking about than this. Let me list my top 50. My favorite fantasies. That old wound that still hurts. that hangs over me.

[25:59]

And listening to the breath, attending, opening to the breath. This amazing registry of the state of mind, the emotional accompaniment, this mysterious life force. And I would say to you, each time you sit down, to be dumbstruck by the immensity and the audacity to sit zazen, to engage something as tangible and mysterious as body and breath.

[27:12]

This is Kanno Doko. This is the communion, the connection, the interbeing. Zenji says, as the translator says, establishing, and he calls this kanodoko, he calls it sympathetic communion. Sympathetic communion with the truth. Kastanahashi calls it resonating with the way. Now the translator calls it spiritual rapport. Actually, he calls it spiritual rapport with a master.

[28:20]

Or maybe a mistress. And maybe everything is either or both. to initiate our sitting like this. And I think if you pay careful attention to the breath, you'll discover what an extraordinary support it is in this form of engagement. Let the inhale be the natural reflex of the body. Yes, we're asked to let go of doing, of being in charge.

[29:35]

But we're trusting and allowing something in this human condition that knows how to be. We're trusting and allowing it to make evident what's going on in the moment. As we attend to that letting the inhale happen, we have glimpses, we have palpable experiences of what it is let mind happen what it is to let sound happen what it is to let seeing happen and then to experience the sensations of that inhale as it engages as it communicates with

[30:43]

as it calls forth the Dharma of breathing body. Sometimes we experience the tendrils of awareness enlivening the body. Sometimes some place that's stuck Sometimes how mental activity short-circuits this engagement and takes charge. And receptive awareness experiences that. And something in this versatility of attention, something in this willingness to intend deeply and then accept whatever arises.

[32:08]

Something in this malleability also teaches. can force it on you and you can't even force it on yourself and through Daya offers up appreciation for such compassion and generosity resonating with the way, arousing aspiration for awakening, taking refuge in the great way.

[33:25]

Where shall we find happiness? In taking charge of our experience? calling forth some mental construct that in that moment seems more appealing, whether that happens intentionally or just out of our conditioned existence. We enter the cone of zazan and boom, we're in the middle of interbeing.

[34:39]

Can we hold this process with wonder? dharma and who are you what are you not recognizing not recognizing not making a story about it or more exactly not returning to an old story about it Oh, let me tell you about me. I'm so wonderful on a good day. I'm so terrible on a bad day. Usually when we get too arrogant, something comes along to dismay us about our unworthiness, and then we fall into that for a while, and then we flip it the other way.

[35:56]

Can we take these tentative, careful explorations into interbeing? Can the arisings of the self become beautiful examples? Can we see and hear and appreciate becoming one voice, becoming one breath, becoming one body in our chanting. In that kanno doko, we fly in the vast sky of interconnectedness. we swirl around.

[37:10]

Sometimes my mind thinks, but shouldn't it be more like this? How interesting. Even that can have its own beauty. particular arising offers its own availability, and then it offers its own con. I was told yesterday about the eclipse with the kind of implicit question, and what about that?

[38:19]

We're all going to go outside and See something that happens once in 150 years? Or like diligent, devoted Zen students, shall we say, hmm, this whole world is going to fall apart eventually. We'll immerse ourselves in the interbeing of inhale and exhale. More wondrous than a thousand eclipses. So I cleverly constructed a solution to that, a magnificent compromise that just forgot that you can't see through mountains, a mere detail.

[39:24]

that the moon doesn't hover in one place in the sky. I looked at it as I was doing the morning junta, and I thought, yeah, we could all stand there and see it right there. Embedded in our karmic life, failures great defeats great disappointments regrets resentments disheartened when it's held in the spaciousness of awareness just twirling the flower of suchness I guess we won't bother going outside.

[40:35]

Beyond success and failure. Beyond right and wrong. Beyond, am I a good person or a bad person? someone else a good person or a bad person we don't have to hunt dine and demolish the constructs the activities of mind and heart and we never would anyway be capable of it Can we hold them in this spacious way? Can we notice, acknowledge, contact, experience?

[41:46]

Not as some fierce rigor. turns our life into virtual. It's something simpler, something closer to our human aspirations to be alive while we're alive. It's not going to last forever. Be ready. Starting here, what do you want to remember?

[43:01]

How sunlight creeps, creeps along a shining floor? sent how the scent of old wood hovers what softening sound comes it's from outside and fills the air will you ever bring a better gift for the earth than the breathing respect you carry wherever you go right now are you waiting for a time to show you some better thoughts What can anyone give you greater than now, starting here, right in this zendo, when you turn around, when you connect to what is? Just the inhale has a hundred details.

[44:20]

The pause, the exhale, the pause, the rhythm of the four of them, the four quartets. in this great coin of being alive. Asking us to live. Asking us to enliven. Asking us what is it to inter-be with each arising moment.

[45:28]

If you find the words experience, experience, being experienced, useful, use them. If you don't, throw them away and find what is useful. Take these concepts and let them find their own alchemy in what reverberates for you. Not the you that has fixed ideas and opinions and demands, but that aliveness that yearns to open up and inter-be. For more information, visit sfcc.org and click giving.

[46:46]

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