This podcast is offered by the San Francisco Zen Center on the web at sfzc.org. Our public programs are made possible by donations from people like you. I'd like to start with a poem. It's hard not to love the world, but possible. When I'm like this, even the swallows... are not God. Even the yellow school bus, even the children inside wanting out are not God. So today we have a one-day sitting. A number of us, 70, around 70, are going to spend the whole day being present. Or maybe we're going to spend the whole day not being present, discovering what it is to be present, or some combination.

[01:09]

A couple of weeks ago, Tenshin Reb Anderson, the senior Dharma teacher who lives at Green Gulch, gave a talk on zazen. And he said, Zazen is non-abiding. We study how to abide, how we abide, then non-abide. And the inverse is also true. We study our non-presence. to discover presence. And yet, in the involvement in it, the affirmation is more conducive than the negation.

[02:18]

It seems to be something in our human condition that given the experience of the moment, how it's lacking, what's not happening, what could be happening, seems to arise readily. In the wonderful way this poet, Jim Moore, in true Zen fashion, turns our resistance to presence upside down. It's hard not to love the world, but possible. I think it works just as easily the other way. It's hard to love the world, but possible. Zazen is exploring the territory of presence.

[03:25]

exploring the architecture of presence. What kind of a world does presence create? What kind of involvement in the world does presence create? What sense of self? Is it inclined towards preoccupation with its own inadequacies? or suffering? Or does it have an inclining towards opening, engaging, affirming? Even the children in the yellow school bus, wanting out, have their own completion.

[04:27]

have their own affirmation. There's a way we can affirm the experience, even when it has some quality of reluctance, inside the bus wanting it. Even that's complete. the cultivation, the territory of presence is similar to the territory of happiness. When it arises, it has a familiarity. It has a kind of gentle authority. It has a reassurance. And in our endeavors to bring it forth.

[05:32]

It's elusive. It's ephemeral. It's a delicate proposition. And this is the territory of Zazen. The exploration, the discovery, and the realization of presence. And how do we study? How do we explore? How do we discover? How do we realize? And how do we do any one of the three or all of the three without it becoming an expression of discontent, an expression of subtle aggression or control, or subtle aversion?

[06:50]

And this is where the quality affirmation is deeply instructive. The expression of zazen is, yes, this is happening. And indeed, this is happening. Whether I like it or don't like it, whether in my considered notion of practice it should be something different, it is what it is. And yet, in my being, in the very structure of how I think about the world, how I formulate the world as thoughts and concepts and judgments and attitudes, there is often a sense that this could be, should be different, could be better, that this is not quite sufficient.

[08:05]

And in my emotions, in the lingering fears and discontent, an emotional quality that separates from this is completely what it is. And then somewhat mysteriously for us, kind of a visceral contraction, some way that our very survival is involved at times, separating. So when we sit, we study. We study these modes of being. We study how to get in touch with them, how to be a good student.

[09:20]

and let them teach us about the human condition. And let them teach us the intimate workings of the person we are. To let them teach us the workings of mind, the workings of emotions, and this more visceral being. And even in the profundity of the sutras, it says zazen is non-abiding. We study what is abiding. We study what is happening.

[10:21]

We study the assertions with which we meet the moment. to discover what conditioned existence is. Like the flavor of this short poem by Shinkichi Takahashi. I don't take your words merely as words. Far from it. I listen to what makes you talk, whatever that is, and makes me listen. Maybe as a poem about Zazen we could say, I don't take my words merely as words, far from it. I listen to what makes me talk, whatever that is, and makes me listen.

[11:29]

this extraordinary narrative, internal narrative that's going on, this articulation, this commentary on being alive. With its musical interludes. turning towards this affirmation, this way of offering ourselves delicately, kindly, reassuringly. This is it.

[12:38]

to say there isn't a discipline in the process. But if the discipline becomes harsh, the delicacy of presence becomes elusive. You can't coerce yourself into being happy. No matter how aggressive you become. doesn't work. No matter how frustrated and demanding you are of your body or your mind, that doesn't facilitate a blossoming. A blossoming where even the yellow school bus and the school children reluctant to go to school have their own completeness.

[13:45]

Even the arising in your mind, even this insistence on reliving a memory, it has its own completeness. It's lacking nothing. Can it be met experienced in a way that invites settling, that permits presence, that has a tenderness for the workings of self. the way our mind, our thinking mind, has formulated, the way our feelings have laid their patterns, the way our visceral being has contracted into its holding.

[15:00]

Each of them, and together, they have an amazing story to tell. I listen to not only to what you say, but the way you say it. This is how we desire it. What extraordinary, amazing expression of being will come forth this period? Will it be reaching into the past? oppress old pains so they prick my being again with pain? Will it be fantasizing the perfection of somewhere else? Or will it be anticipating future pains?

[16:08]

And of course, Our usual way is they all fall short. They're all just descriptors of our own shortcomings, inadequacies, feelings. And yet, if we hold them simply as that, they're disturbing, they're disappointing. They stimulate in us a sense of wishing for something else. So the delicate proposition of practice is

[17:13]

cultivating what we might almost call the wish for now. And the delicate work of presence is that the arising of the self is not the enemy. That the arising of the self is the territory of both discovery, engaging, and realization. That each experience is an invitation. That even if the mind is furiously occupied,

[18:14]

What is that fury? Not to create a story about a speculation. Oh, it surprises out of this or that. More, how does it feel? More of a feeling of the energy of it. Within the technology of working with consciousness, we can say, rather than energize the content, making it more vivid and real. Energize awareness of the content. It's like we hold it in a bigger picture. It's like watching school kids on a bus, looking out the window, longing for freedom.

[19:20]

And their longing is our longing. And our longing is longing who doesn't long for freedom. Who doesn't want to cast off restrictions, limitations. But it's not a negation of the direct experience. It's this extraordinary way the affirmation of the experience opens the mind, opens the heart. It's about exactly this and it's about everything because this illustrates everything. Rilke talks about it like this. Whoever grasps the thousand contradictions of their life pulls them together into a single image.

[20:37]

The single image of the children looking out the window. puts us in touch with a thousand ways we've not wanted to be where we are. We've wanted to be somewhere else. We've not wanted to have the experience we're having. We've wanted another one. Pulls them into the single image and also the single image can open to them all in the moment of yes. This is completely itself. And in the marvelous mystery of presence, it's not so much then we recount in detail the thousand particulars of contradiction that happened or separation.

[21:55]

It's not that we get busy thinking. Realization experiences beyond thinking, with thinking, and a combination of both. And this also is the delicate territory of Zazen. This is the delicate territory of presence that every moment, every interaction offers itself up to. Whoever grasps the thousand contradictions in their life and pulls them together into a single image, that person, joyful and thankful, How could we not be thankful for a moment that deeply instructs how to live?

[23:08]

How could we not be thankful for a moment that truly nourishes and alleviates the dissatisfaction and the joy that arises? The joy that arises with the cessation of struggling, the cessation of I have to keep pushing against reality to conjure up happiness. Can even the sound of the siren just be allowed to be completely itself? This is Zazen. It's allowed to be itself, and in that allowing, non-grasping.

[24:22]

It just happens. It's allowed to be itself, and in its completeness, the urgency of doing something to it, dissipates. And even if the mind conjures up an image of an ambulance or a police car hurrying off to some dramatic event, that's completely itself too. Nothing has deviated from now. Whoever grasps the thousand contradictions, their life pulls them together into a single image.

[25:25]

And that person, joyful and thankful, drives the rioters out of the palace. Here we are, in presence, rioting. It's not enough. It has to be different. Can we study that voice, that declaration, kindly, patiently? Really. Tell me about not enough. What difference is essential for this to be just itself? And listen to what makes me speak.

[26:30]

And in the skillfulness of Zazen, not to conjure up more thoughts, more activity of mind, but to invite... Maybe initially, the feeling. And the more thoroughly we invite the feeling, the more it melts from just an upsurging emotion that carries with it its own determination. It melts into something more visceral. It gives us clues. of a deeper sensibility. An entwined symbiotic being of mind and feeling and visceral being. And this is a territory that's not so

[27:47]

to cognitive mind. So it doesn't offer itself up so easily to understanding. So attending to the disposition, the state of mind, the emotion. And this is particularly helpful when the insistence of the mental construct perseveres. If the mind is held in that narrative, what's the disposition that feeds it? Or, as Rilke says, those rioters in the palace. What kind of placards are they holding up?

[28:49]

What exactly is their problem? Why are they rioting? What emotional disposition is making rioting seem so appropriate? This is to study the self. Sometimes it's helpful. to note the cognitive in the service of this fuller connection. This person, joyful and thankful, drives the rioters out of the palace, becomes celebratory in a different way. Usually, we celebrate when we get what we want. Hooray, I'm getting what I want. Finally, I'm getting what I want.

[29:58]

We celebrate what is. Because in the moment of presence, it's complete. And that's what we always wanted. Completion, fullness, non-separation. And this celebration, this engagement, is deeply instructive. We let the moment of presence undo the insistence that it should be different. We attend to the world it creates. We attend to the ambience of it.

[31:04]

We attend to the feeling of it. We attend to the spaciousness of it. We attend to the non-grasping of it. And in the language of Buddhism, in the imagery of Buddhism, all being, all existence is saved. It becomes celebratory in a different way. It doesn't contract into Finally, I'm getting what I want. I am a great person. I am present. I am better than everybody else doing the one day sitting because they're not as present as me. I'm more humble than them.

[32:05]

The presence is the guest that's received in the quiet evening. Presence is the being in the solitude. But this solitude includes everything. Nothing's left out of it. It's not the solitude of separation, it's the solitude of the singularity of all inclusion. It includes

[33:17]

the murmuring signs of the traffic, each one of them with its own mysterious destination. It includes the physical sensations in the body, the workings of the DNA that's millions of years old. It includes the arising of the thoughts and images, the extraordinary of human existence that weaves a personality coursing through the veins and neurons and the neurochemicals that perfume its being.

[34:38]

is included. Each and every one, yes. Presence is the second being in this solitude. The settled center of greeting being. And every circle that's drawn around it lifts being out of time. It's not a now separate from then, before, and after. It's a now that includes everything. The presence of Zazen is not some narrow, small turret parade

[35:47]

that we have to cram everything into. The presence of zazen is boundless, timeless. It includes everything. The limitation of zazen is the one we insist upon. This is not zazen. Okay, if you say so. This is bad zazen. I am failing at being assassin. Or I am succeeding. Later, I'll fail. Like this, we study. And within this, we bring

[36:50]

The yoga, we bring the skillful aligning of physical being. We bring the skillful aligning of breath. We bring a disposition, we invite a disposition of awareness. mental disposition. We invite a willingness to be. And we watch. Does that willingness to be without an agenda, does it quicken the urgencies of our agendas? Or do we thankfully set them down.

[37:52]

When we thankfully set them down, we study spacious presence. When we pick them up and assert them, we study picking them up and asserting them. We open to it. Either way, the condition, nature of existence turns, yes. No human arising goes beyond Zazen. So we call it non-abiding because everything's included in it and it's completely abiding.

[39:02]

It's just not holding to a fixed way of abiding. And the heritage of Zen The yoga of the Zen tradition. Deliberate, careful attention to body, breath, state of mind, and a rising experience. Not in the service of what we're going to make happen or stop happening. Not as an expression of discontent with who we are and what it is to be alive. And most of us, if not all of us, need to remind ourselves of that bit. When we start to sit, when we notice ourself grasping and resisting by trying to control, when we stop sitting and we're like the reluctant

[40:20]

school kid getting off the bus. Finally, I'm off the strictures of Zazen and I can be myself. Be yourself in the middle of Zazen. Let the body, the breath, the attention to the state of mind, attention to what arises. Be vast. Don't impose a limitation on it. Let it be an entry point. Notice when something else is being added. some discontent, some grasping, some motion towards control.

[41:31]

Whoever grasps the thousand contradictions, their life pulls them together into a single image. That person, joyful and thankful, drives the rioters out of the palace. it becomes celebratory in a different way. And presence is the guest that receives the quiet evening. Presence is in the solitude, the settled center of being. And every circle draws around presence, lifting out of time. So how do we absorb words and images and in the digestion let them become an intention to be, a willingness to be?

[43:10]

not in denial of the human condition, not determined to fix it either, but deeply kind towards the human condition. This kind of permission, presence, willingness, and we invite, [...] invite. Thank you. Thank you for listening to this podcast offered by the San Francisco Zen Center. Our programs are made possible by the donations we receive. Please help us to continue to realize

[44:18]

and actualize the practice of giving by offering your financial support. For more information, visit sfzc.org and click Giving. May we fully enjoy the Dharma.

[44:35]

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