Good. So welcome. Thank you for your patience. And for those of you who do not know me, my name is Tenzin David Zimmerman, and I serve as the abiding abbot at our Beginner's Mind Temple in San Francisco, also known as City Center. And this is the fourth in a series of online practice sessions that San Francisco Zen Center is experimenting with as a way to create more connection amidst this unprecedented circumstances that have unfolded with the arrival of the COVID-19. So last week, the two sessions that we had, I had invited Mark Lesser and Susan O'Connell to co-lead because they were wrapping up a Zen and Work four-week intensive, and the end of which the last three days of last week were a sashim.

[01:01]

Did anyone participate in that? Yes. Yeah, a number of you. Wonderful. So it was lovely to have them join and have them kind of lead these practice sessions. And today I have the joy to be with you in this way. So if you're not familiar with the format, if this is the first time that you're joining us, so what will be happening is I'll lead us in a... meditation shortly. I'll start off for those who are newer to meditation with a little bit of guidance and then slowly go into just silenced. And at the end of that period of time, I'll be about 25 minutes or so, I'll offer what I'm calling a dharmet, a mini dharma talk. That'll be about 10 minutes or so. And then we'll open up for sharing to see if there's anything you'd like to bring forward in terms of your own practice, either based on anything that I kind of shared in my Dharmet, or just what's alive for you in your practice right now.

[02:08]

So we'll be starting in just a moment with the meditation. I do want to say that... All the microphones in the Zoom right now are turned off except for mine. And we're also recording this session for anyone who may not have an opportunity to join this evening. So just be aware that if you don't want your image to appear in the recording, you're welcome to turn off your video so that you have that expression of privacy, if that would be important to you. And I think with that, without much further ado, we'll begin our meditation. So why don't we go ahead and get yourself settled, find a comfortable position for which you can be in stillness for the next 20 or so minutes, and find an upright, alert, attentive posture. And upright means more the attitude, not so much necessarily the position.

[03:14]

So if you need to lay down because of your body situation, you're welcome to do that. Or if you need to stand for the period of meditation, you're welcome to do that as well. Whatever works for your particular body. The main thing is define a posture that you can settle into and be relaxed in for an extended period of time. So I'm going to ring a bell for three times. And I invite you to, when you hear the initial sound of the bell, just follow along with awareness to the first time you hear it for its duration. And then as it fades away, noticing what is it that remains. So having directed mind's attention to the sound of the bell, I simply allow awareness to settle to the present moment experience with the same focused attention.

[04:50]

For some people, it may be helpful initially to have some object to which to give your attention to. For example, the breath is often used as an object of meditation. So you might wish to direct your awareness to the sensations of the breath or to the sounds of breathing. Simply rest your attention, allowing the breath to be natural. Just let the breath come to you. as if it was just arriving in your awareness, allowing the natural flow of the inhale and the exhale to happen on their own accord. So the breath becomes a touchstone for us, a place for the mind to settle and to relax.

[06:10]

To simply let go of anything it may need to let go of, and become still and quiet. by following the breath, we're initially giving the mind something to attend to, since our thinking mind can make us feel more unsettled, tense, or anxious, given the thinking mind's tendency to grasp and cling. the being with the gentle flow of the breath, or with whatever other experience supports you to be in the present moment.

[07:16]

If the mind wanders, awareness of the breath you find that it's become occupied with thoughts and worries that's okay just notice that this has happened and then gently and without judgment redirect mind's attention back to the breath once more and most likely you'll find that this will happen over and over again throughout the period of meditation This is coming. This will happen. Simply notice that this has happened. And then once again, redirect mind's attention back to the breath or to where you wish it to be. So we can begin with a focused spotlight of awareness on a particular aspect of the breath.

[08:49]

And in time, you might wish to experiment with widening the aperture or widening the spotlights of awareness to include a wider field of breathing. For example, the experience of the breath throughout the whole body. feeling the breath, not just around the mouth and the lungs and the abdomen, but all the way into your limbs, to your fingers, into your toes, into the crown of your head. Giving ourselves over to the experience of being breathed. There's nothing we need to do in this moment but simply rest in that experience. In time, as the mind quiets and stabilizes even further, you may wish to explore widening the aperture of awareness even more to include the space beyond the body and into the room and maybe beyond.

[10:32]

So now, awareness is focused on space itself. spaciousness as a breath, resting as a sky-like awareness, a vast, open, luminous space in which any thoughts, feelings, or body sensations that arise are simply noted and allowed to pass through, unhindered. There's no need to grasp or get caught up. Simply allowing all experience to pass through this open awareness like clouds in the sky. Simply resting.

[11:44]

Resting into the direct experience of the present moment. Opening to what is happening now. However it's appearing. Just this. list. So thank you everyone for your practice.

[28:31]

Are you still able to hear me okay? Yeah. Great. Thank you. I was out walking last night after work and realized that the days are getting longer with spring. And then right afterwards, I realized that our shelter-in-place here in San Francisco has also just gotten longer. It's been extended to the end of April. And so realizing that this persistence of the situation is going to be for a while. It's going to be a long time, perhaps, at least a month or longer. So how it is that we find our way in this journey and find some measure of composure and resilience and diligence and just the capacity to be with the situation as it unfolds is going to be important for our own overall well-being and emotional physical and mental capacity to be with the circumstance and our well-being

[29:50]

So it seems like in some places, the pandemic is actually, in some cases, subsiding. It's not as bad. And in other cases, it's actually exploding. So I have this idea that, you know, this image of the flowering trees and plants of spring, they're just kind of blossoming, blooming, bursting forth. And at the same time, so is some hope. that we'll see a far end of this pandemic. And at the same time, we also know that there is going to be much more despair and, unfortunately, death that's going to unfold. But the reality is it's always like this, isn't it? Life and death unfolding moment by moment. And we just maybe become more aware of it at particular times of our lives. I would like to start my dharmet with a Zen coin that a number of you might be familiar with.

[30:54]

It's found as case three in the Blue Cliff Record and case 36 in the Book of Serenity. And the heading that's used is Master Ma is unwell. And the main verse goes like this. Great Master Ma was unwell. The temple superintendent asked him, teacher. How has your venerable health been in recent days? The great master said, sun-faced Buddha, moon-faced Buddha. So, of course, sun-faced Buddha and moon-faced Buddha are metaphors. In a text known as the Buddha Nature Scripture, it explains that sun-faced Buddha is eternal and lives in the world for 1,800 years or basically for eternity. And the sun-faced Buddha, in other words, dwells in limitless time and space. The moon-faced Buddha, on the other hand, is just one day of life, one 24-hour period.

[32:02]

So moon-faced Buddha is our everyday human life, the life of the five skandhas, if you will, our mundane life, or the basic factors of the human experience. So Master Ma's answer is, encompasses both the absolute and the relative. He's able to say both, that he feels great from the absolute point of view, and he can equally say that he feels lousy and that he's sick from the relative point of view. So he can hold both simultaneously as true, hold that paradox. Suzuki Roshi comments, In his collection of talks, Not Always So, on this koan, he says, Whatever happens to Master Ma, he can accept things as it is. Sun-faced Buddha is good. Moon-faced Buddha is good. Whatever it is that is good. All things are Buddha.

[33:04]

And there is no Buddha even. We should be very grateful to have a limited body like yours or mine. If you had a limitless life, it would be a great problem for you. Without limitation, nothing exists. So we should enjoy it. The only way to enjoy our life is to enjoy the limitation given to us. So that's a pretty provocative statement that Suzuki Roshi makes, right? The only way to enjoy our life is to enjoy the limitation given to us. I don't know about you, but I have difficulty accepting certain limitations, particularly limitations on my personal happiness, my well-being, and my prosperity. Also, kind of my sense of my own freedom and what it should look like and how I should be able to navigate the world and who I should be able to choose to be. And yet, without limitations...

[34:08]

And another way to frame limitations is, as the word form, without form, nothing would exist. And this is one of the things that you find in Zen. Form is very important. We have a lot of forms. How you enter into the Zendo, how you bow to and away from your seat, how you hold your oyoki bowls. All those forms basically bring us to awareness of how we are relating to our own being and all of life. So we know who we are in the moment by how it is that we relate to form. And as you know, in the Heart Sutra, it says form is emptiness, emptiness is form. So they're not separate. We exist by virtue of relationship. And moment by moment, our study becomes how am I in relationship with all experience, whatever that experience might be. My suffering and my liberation, is a matter of the way in which I relate to all experience.

[35:14]

And particularly if I relate to it as if I was a separate self. The minute any self thing arises, any sense of separation arises, any dualistic perception arises, that's the crack in which suffering begins to manifest. So we keep stepping back into our experience to study our relationship with experience, with whatever arises or appears in our field of awareness. And the easiest place to do this initially is on our meditation seat, right? To be able to sit there and not have to do anything other than to observe, how am I relating to the experience as it's arising in this present moment? Am I relating to it from reactivity and karmic conditioning? Or am I relating to it in a way that liberates both the experience and my sense of a self in some way? So from a Dharma point of view, the sun and the moon are equally expressions of the same bright jewel of Buddha.

[36:30]

What I frame sometimes is boundless, luminous awareness, right? Experiencing health and happiness and prosperity is a manifestation of the bright jewel of Buddha. And likewise, when you are sick, that too is the bright jewel of Buddha. And of course, our small grasping mind itself does not want to be sick or to die. For example, to be sick or die from the coronavirus. nor have those who we love and care about become sick and die. But great teacher Ma is saying, I'm okay. My moon-faced Buddha is dying, but my sun-faced Buddha is living the eternal life. So how might we, like Master Ma, be equally able to find a measure of composure and equanimity when facing all kinds of situations? whether or not we prefer them. And such a kind of measure of equanimity blossoms from the wisdom and spaciousness of our Zazen and Zen practice.

[37:43]

So it comes from the recognition that what we are fundamentally is not limited to or bounded by conditioned karmic consciousness or experience. We are not the conditions in which we find ourselves in. What is it that is observing all conditions and yet not identifying with conditions? So observing the experiences, the mind body, and yet not creating a self out of those experiences. Just this luminous awareness, like this, I talked about the spotlight at the beginning during the meditation. The spotlight is always there. Something is always shining. What it shines on is not what we are. It's the shining itself that basically points to our true nature, that is our true nature, just that luminous quality, right?

[38:51]

So the more we can step back from our identification with, experience and just be this kind of light that's illuminating experience, the more freedom we're going to find in any situation. There is a beautiful verse that accompanies this poem and it goes like this. Sun-faced Buddha, moon-faced Buddha, what kind of people were the ancient ones? For 20 years I have suffered bitterly. How many times have I gone down into the blue dragon's cave for you? This distress is worth recounting. Clear-eyed, patch-robed monks should not take it lightly. I find this verse quite moving, this idea that a Dharma teacher or a Dharma friend who has a measure of understanding and freedom is willing to go into the mud and dark difficulties of what's called the dragon's cave.

[39:54]

for their students, and for all beings. Basically, this is the bodhisattva vow, right? In order to work and help in the world of samsara, we must be like Jizo, bodhisattva, going into hell to help the suffering beings, right? So we ourselves may suffer greatly by being in contact with dukkha, or dissatisfaction, or disease, or suffering. You know, whatever that we come in contact, it may not be so easy to bear. It may not be something that we like or prefer. But this distress or suffering is worth recounting. And it's worth enduring because it points our fellow human beings the way to freedom. We become a guiding light for others, showing them what's possible in terms of liberation. And in fact, it's what makes us human. You know, it's what makes us noble, this capacity. And when I think of this, you know, in this particular situation, I think of all the healthcare providers, the doctors, the nurses, and also the food growers and the grocery clerks and all these other instrumental people who are providing key services to a majority of us so that we can shelter in place in order to minimize the spread of the virus.

[41:16]

Yeah. They're bodhisattvas acting on our behalf. They're going in their own way into the dragon's cave for us, right? But we need to also recognize that staying home is also a bodhisattva activity. So don't think that you have to be out in the world doing something, right? Being home itself is a bodhisattva activity. And the particular... Dragon's cave or the dukkha that we need to enter may take a different form for each of us. And that's part of our own process. You know, what is the dragon cave that we will enter into at this time? And it may be, may take the shape of staying home and being bored, right? And for weeks on end. And it may also take the shape of going to the grocery store to purchase food for those who are at high risk and shouldn't go themselves. And it may take the shape of foregoing being able to fly to your aging mother on the East Coast so that you don't inadvertently pass on the virus to her.

[42:27]

So what is the particular sacrifice that the moment is asking of you that is for the benefit of all beings? that is directed towards liberation in some way. In the Buddha Dharma, we don't make a distinction between the one serving and the one being served. So sun-faced Buddha, moon-faced Buddha, each is equally Buddha. It's only the picking and choosing the mind that creates problems. It says this is good or this is bad. So everything, is equally practice. The revival of spring and the revival of pandemic. Everything is Buddha in the coronavirus. So what is it to turn to that and explore that and see whether or not that's something that you might agree with in time, right? So the current pandemic access to go beyond anything we might have imagined our will to be.

[43:34]

to stay steady in our vow to not turn away, to go into the dragon's cave, to go into the realm of suffering, and to be able to keep our hearts and minds open and responsive to both the expression of suffering that's arising before us, but also simultaneously to the beauty that's in the world around us, right? So we can respond with both small and large acts of loving kindness and tenderness Those acts make all the difference because they are ennobling and they give us meaning into whatever circumstances that we find ourselves in. And right now, we're all, as you probably heard, all in this together. We're always in this together. But it's times like this that we actually become more aware of it. So I'll stop there and open up the... floor, I guess, however you want to screen, open up the screen to anyone who has something they want to share or express.

[44:40]

It could be a question. It could be your own experience of going into the dragon's cave. What is it that you're relating to in this particular koan in some way? Would you recognize in your own life the sun-faced Buddha, moon-faced Buddha? What is equanimity for you? And how do you connect with a sense of balance in the midst of times of great uncertainty? Anything. So I see there are a few questions. So let's see. Actually, that was an indication. So down below, if you want to raise your hand at the bottom, it says manage participants. And when you click on that, you'll see all the participants. And there you'll be able to raise your hand at the bottom.

[45:43]

It'll say raise hand or lower hand. So feel free to raise your hand. Lori Zenchu. And Tim is helping me today. He's the Zoom driver for today, so he's going to help me find Lori and unmute Lori's microphone. Can you hear me? I can hear you, yes. I've never done this before. Okay. First, thank you for doing this. They've extended the stay-in-place order, and I have to say, Every time I read this, it fills me with a sense of dread. Like, how am I going to keep doing this? So the question is about dread of the future. Well, you know, I find for myself, dread is always based in a thought.

[46:47]

It starts with a thought. It starts with an idea of some sort. And it may just be the question, how can I do this? But the belief or the thought under that is, I can't do this. Yes. So noticing that that thought is there. And then what is it to release it or not to believe it? But actually to turn to the thought from a point of curiosity. Really, that's to make it, I'm curious. How might I be able to be with this? to treat this as an opportunity for practice, to study. It doesn't mean I'm going to like it. It doesn't mean it's always going to be comfortable. But how can I actually thrive in this? What do I need to do to make that possible? And you may already have some things that you've done to find ways to be with the last few weeks that you've done this. Are there particular things that you find helpful? I've been painting. I've been painting.

[47:48]

For the first time, FaceTiming with people and exercising. I'm a swimmer, so I can't swim now. So that's a major loss for me. And that's a big part of my life, surfing and swimming. And being cut off from that, I have to say, is really difficult. That's basically it. I've been painting and I've been being better with my practice, I think. So you've already found a number of beneficial ways to be with the situation, to take care of yourself. It's true you can't do everything that you used to be doing, but maybe there are new things, new projects, new things you wanted to take up that you haven't got around to. And here's an opportunity to do that, to study a new language, to read that Dogen fascicle you always wanted to read.

[48:51]

Or make a date every day to have tea with a friend. Really just actually have a meal. Take time to be with friends, even if it's virtually. And maybe you exercise together with your friend. There's this whole series of different ways to explore what you can be with. But the other thing that I've been experimenting with is when I have the sense of dread come up in my stomach, right? I sit with it. I actually turn to it. And I'm really trying to make an effort to study what is this experience? Not with a label. I actually don't find labeling it as dread so helpful. I find it more helpful to just be with the sensation of the experience and just rest my mind there for a period of time and breathe with it, just to be with it.

[49:53]

You could call it befriending the experience. So to befriend the dread and see what happens when you do that. It's basically calling... calling for a companion. It's calling for, you know, kind of loving awareness to just acknowledge it and be with it. And then, you know, if it passes or subsides a little bit, then that's what happens. Wonderful. Thank you very much. You're welcome. Thank you, Laurie. Maria Elena. My goodness. It's been a great long time. Yes. Are you still Brazil? I am. Three hours, four hours ahead of you guys. Wow. Thank you so much for having this space. It is really meaningful for me. When the whole thing started here, I never thought I'm going back home because I have a time that finishes until June.

[51:00]

So I said, well, I will stay here. I could do everything online. So I thought, why am I here? Let's go home. But then I couldn't go. The flights were canceled and very, very expensive. And then I got very frustrated. And so at the beginning, it was a sense of, oh, it's nice. I will have more time to do things and to be in peace. But then I got very upset. And it was so hard to accept to be stuck here. And finally, on Sunday, I decided, well, I'm going to have to turn this into a very long session. And so I started getting, like, I got the session we did last spring practice with you. I got the schedule, and I started doing all this scheduling. And fortunately enough, you guys opened...

[52:02]

Descendo online so I can do the practice with you. The same people here are also doing it online and in Mexico too. So now I have all these practices. That's beautiful. Feeling the day. And I am also putting time for work. But much, much less stressful. And today, this is kind of the seventh session. And I mean, now I'm ready to sleep, but it's really interesting how it is now. Finally, I accepted that I could use it. And well, now I'm going to be in a long retreat while this crisis is going on on this global scale. And I thank you guys to open up for everybody. Oh, well, so lovely to have you, and I'm so glad that you were able to transform this into an actual retreat for yourself and really find it as supportive for your practice.

[53:10]

So take good care. I see Michelle Ferrer. Hi. Can you hear me? I can, yes. Okay. So I had a question. I work in healthcare, and they were letting us work from home, and then all of a sudden just decided to... we have to come back into work and there's a lot of changes and that requires a lot of patience, a lot of acceptance. How can I accept that when everything, when I kind of put my mind to one thing and then try to be there in that moment and then it's kind of, I get sideswiped and then have to readjust all over again. What sideswipes you? just the changes in the structure. So we're told, like, either stay at home, and then we're told, no, come back to work, in the hospital, and that kind of, those changes in the structure of what my role is. So it's helpful at a time like this.

[54:15]

I often like to use the metaphor of water. How can I be like water? How can I flow with whatever is unfolding? So as, you know, I'm... going downstream, if you will, of this particular narrow valley? What boulders, what kind of turns and bends, what trees are obstacles in the way? How can I be fluid and flexible enough to just allow myself to acknowledge it and to kind of fold over it in some way? So what I find keeps me from being flexible is is often a fixed sense of how things should be. Oh, you told me it was going to be like this. Then it should be like this, right? It can't change anymore. But the reality is it can change moment by moment. So if we can allow ourselves to also be fluid, to change our mind, to be flexible, to be able to...

[55:20]

kind of be responsive to the circumstances moment by moment and realizing that we're always basically doing this process of meeting the moments, doing our best to flow with it or to come in alignment with it or sometimes we say in harmony with it and realize that that is for that very moment. And the next moment requires something else of us. And the thing to realize, particularly in this situation, everyone is doing their best. The landscape for all of us, it's changing tremendously, moment by moment. So it may be that the information someone is telling you, do this one moment, they are suddenly finding themselves having to change course. in order to respond to different circumstances. And they're inviting you to join them in trying to figure out what is the best course of action now, given the situation. So I don't know if that's helpful in any way.

[56:23]

Yes, thank you. You're welcome. Thank you for everything you're doing. Maybe one more sharing or question. Melissa, hello. Hi, David. Hi. Good to see you again. You too. So the thank yous have been made and I reiterate all those, but I wanted to see if I am following something. Today you were talking about equanimity and holding sun-faced Buddha and moon-faced Buddha. And one of your previous talks in the Sashin, I think, you gave us a clue into one way you're doing that. And I wanted to give you some feedback and thank you for that.

[57:23]

And it was the idea of Orioki of news, the just enough news. And I find that for me has been wonderful permission to stop getting more information. And the people I've spoken to who are overwhelmed, I offered that from you. I said, here's what the Abbott said. And they brighten up. They go, oh, just enough, huh? And I feel like in a way it gives us permission to settle with whatever enough information is. So I wanted to just thank you for that. You're welcome. If I said that or if Mark said that, I can't remember. I thought you did. Somebody did. Anyway, I associated it with you. But I just felt like this idea, you know, it sounds wonderful to have equanimity. What are some ways we can actually practically achieve that?

[58:25]

So I guess I turn that back to you. So thank you. You're welcome. This is a very important time, I think, as our normal way of doing things is disruptive. What it actually brings to the foreground is that we have a lot of choice in this moment about how we respond. So rather than going through the motions or doing what we usually do, our old habitual habit patterns of just turning on the news or opening the newspaper, to actually in each moment to pause, to stop for a moment, and ask ourselves, why am I doing this? What point of liberation, what freedom does this offer? And do I want to take this up? Do I want to make this a habit going forward? So we have this suspended time. We're in this liminal state in which everything that's kind of familiar in some ways is kind of being thrown up.

[59:28]

And if we choose very carefully what it is that we're going to kind of put back into place to create a life and a world and a society and a way of being that really is much more intentional than it was, then we've taken advantage of this opportunity that the pandemic has created for us. So what is the sun face opportunity in this situation? Can we look for the brightness, you know, that this is pointing us to, the luminosity that this is pointing to us in terms of a freer way of being, you know? And so I keep for myself, you know, I keep looking like, wait, I'm falling into old habit patterns. Can I stop now? I have a chance to do something differently, you know? And how am I going to do this differently going forward? And so it's actually become kind of fascinating and kind of interesting to be, you know, on this raft, you know, kind of going down the river of the pandemic, wondering how am I going to navigate this and what's going to manifest and show up and what new skills or capacities am I going to cultivate and develop as a human being and as a Zen practitioner, you know, that will serve me, you know,

[60:55]

not only serve me in my own liberation, but help me to serve others in their liberation. So I'm just finding it a very rich time. I'm really questioning this fundamental question, who am I? What am I doing? Why am I doing what I'm doing? And how do I want to go forward in a way that doesn't recreate habitual and unwholesome patterns of being? And I hope we, again, I really hope that not only we make that question as individuals, but we make those questions, we put those questions forward as a society and ask our governments and education systems and spiritual institutions and all these other forms of kind of organization, do we really want to go forward in the way that we were going forward? Does it really serve everyone, you know, equally? And if not, let's not pick that up again in the same way.

[61:59]

Let's try something new. So I'm sorry, I went on a rift. That's great. Thank you so much. Okay, everyone. Well, it's past time. So thank you very much for being together this evening. I really appreciated this opportunity. maybe you'll be able to join us on Thursday for another practice session. And I think you're all aware of the morning zazen and the other, the 5.30 zazen, 5.30 San Francisco time zazen that we offer Monday through Friday as well. So please take good care of yourselves. And I wish you all...

[62:41]

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