This podcast is offered by the San Francisco Zen Center on the web at www.sfcc.org. Our public programs are made possible by donations from people like you. Good evening. So for those of you who are here for the first time, we're working on a theme of continuous practice and I'm giving, the talks I'm giving are related to that and in a way they're sequential. So I hope if you come in the midstream it still makes sense. So I'd like to read again this first piece from Dogen Zenji's Bendawa.

[01:07]

wholehearted practice of the way. All Buddhas transmit an inconceivable truth that's actualized just as it is. It has a wondrous art. It's receptive samadhi. Only Buddha is transmitted without deviation. Sitting upright, practicing zazen, is the authentic gate to free yourself in this unconfined realm of samadhi. Although it can't be accessed by thinking, it's abundant in every person. It is not actualized without practiced, and it's not experienced without realization.

[02:12]

Okay. That's Zen Master Dogen. And the challenge for each of us who want to appreciate engage and be instructed and guided by Doga and Zenji's teachings, is how does that translate into an expression of practice that touches our heart and guides our intention and effort. So, in that regard, in the last couple of weeks, Last week, the homework I offered, now that that's what we do, in the tea was pause experience and then bring up now what? How do we interrupt the internal dialogue, the narrative that's saying what reality is, how we're responding to it,

[03:31]

how we're responding to our own response, and how all of that is guiding, stimulating our behaviors, to a large extent without awareness, in a kind of a reactive way. Reactive in that the response is We're compelled to respond this way as an expression, as an acting out of the turmoil within us, the likes and dislikes, the yearnings and aversions within us. So to offer the homework, pause, experience, now what? Can that unexamined stream of thought, feeling, behavior, judgments, conclusions, all that gets mixed in there, can that be interrupted with the moment of awareness and the moment of intentional response that's stimulated by the awareness?

[04:56]

So that was part of the notion of the homework. And then the other part of the notion of the homework is to see, to experience, to witness that we are, in a way we're always in the throes of being the person we are, having the experiences we're having, And that's stimulating the next step in our being alive. That's stimulating the next reaction, response, however it might be. This is a continual process. The theme of this practice period is, how can that continuous process have a continuous response? And the thinking behind using pause rather than stop is stop feels like you're trying to hold back the energy, the momentum of this continuing process.

[06:28]

Maybe suppress it. Hold it back. Hopefully, pause carries more of a sense of in this moment, let something fall away. Like the way a sigh lets something fall away. Can that happen as an attitude? Can that happen as a mental event? Can it happen as an emotional event? And then, in experiencing what's happening, can there be a discernment between reactiveness and intentional response?

[07:35]

Can we discover the mechanics of that? And can we engage it when the mind is steady and there is not so much agitation, not so much compulsion? And can we discover it when the mind is charged And there is a strong sense of activation, a strong compulsion. In the small T group that I was in, we were talking about how one of the wonderful places to work with us is around sending emails.

[08:41]

several of us were mentioning, you know, that in the full throes of passion, you can write a certain kind of email, which, you know, once you press send, it goes on record. And I was kidding, saying, if Shakyamuni was alive today, he would probably have a a dharma around. Before pressing send, pause, breathe, ask yourself, is this what I want to go on record? And as we experience different states of being and bring to them pause, experience, respond. we will experience, rather than the singularity of me, the multiplicity of me.

[09:50]

That each of us is capable of an extraordinary range of emotions, this extraordinary range of states of mind. And we will also experience that when there's a certain kind of thoughtfulness, it draws us back to the intentionality of practice. It draws us back to a more integrated, insightful expression that's there and yet can be quite ephemeral in that we can lose access to it. And then one of Dogen's notions is that in the engaging, in the actualizing, we continually rediscover and continually recreate this capacity, this capacity to tap into

[11:12]

what we might think of as an innate wisdom and compassion. Like we can think of ourselves in a process of, okay, we have, through our deep wish to live fully, we have yearning and aversion and confusion. And then also we can cultivate wisdom and compassion. And how to discover that in all the modes of life that come up for us. And sometimes, you know, one of the things I hope to get to is... a teaching in early Buddhism called The Five Faculties. And the first one is Shraddha, confidence or trust.

[12:15]

And confidence or trust in the realm of practice comes into being when we're in the throes of some conflicted or constricted or limited state, and we bring this awareness to it, and it cracks open. and we experience in that moment liberation. We're in an afflictive state of mind, and we see it for what it is, we see the constructs that hold it in place, make it relevant and compelling, and something in us lets go. Those moments... inspire and instruct in a way that stimulates this shraddha, this confidence, trust.

[13:21]

We know firsthand that practice works. And then for good measure, in the class I offered another... pause. And this one was pause, experience, allow, abide. And the way I was thinking about them was pause, experience, now what? Can be useful in the in the constructed context of our lives. You're dealing with a challenging relationship. And nowadays, a lot of us negotiate these through email.

[14:24]

And someone emails us, and it has a context, it has a story. And of course we have an interpretation from what we read. Can we pause and take all that in, and then now what? And then the second formula I was offering, this pause, experience, allow, abide. In some ways, more... when the mind is more settled, when we're not in the throes of activity, and we're more just seeing the inner workings of our being. So the pause, in a way, is inviting a more reflective engagement of our inner workings.

[15:33]

In a way, with many aspects of practice, there's a sense of progression. I was trying to think of a less dualistic word. I'll have to work on that, but I'm going to have to commit to that for now. Well, To consider a progression is merely a conceptual process, a change. As we start to pay attention to the breath, first of all, we notice a breath, we experience a breath, then we're gone for ten breaths. Then we're back and we notice one more. Maybe first one we noticed an inhale, ten breaths later we notice an exhale.

[16:42]

And then as we start to settle, we start to notice, hey, this breathing thing is going on all the time. And then we settle a little more and we notice, hey, you know, every breath has an inhale and an exhale. And then we settle a little more and we notice, inhale, pause, exhale, pause. And then we settle a little more and we notice that inhale has its own characteristics. It has its own involvement with our physiology. And the pause, there's actually the body is transitioning from inhale to exhale. And then the exhale has its own physiology. continuous practice has this kind of ripening.

[17:51]

We notice more. And so in this second formula, what the notion in my head was, then when we notice more, we experience and then we allow. before we get busy doing something, can you just experience your experience? Whatever it is. Sometimes it's extraordinarily instructive to experience afflictive or agitated states. And often there's difficult emotions that we have trained ourselves to avoid. Sometimes if you watch carefully, you'll notice around some difficult emotions, you contract.

[18:53]

Try not to let that happen. Try not to let that be felt. And then you can notice we contract physically and mentally. Can we allow... and we allow what's happening to happen. Last week I was reading one of Dogen's lists, or four steps, and he was saying, awakening, allowing what is to be what is, is a kind of awakening. I was also using the term, it's a kind of undoing, the narrative that creates the definition of the world, creates the definition of the self, creates the definition of here and now, creates the definition of before and after.

[20:08]

When we allow the experience, that's Undone. And then the last one I offered was to abide. Allow and then soak it up. Let it be... Let's say with the difficult emotion, you notice the mental and physical contraction. And then can you allow difficult emotion to be felt? And sometimes we have the insight

[21:09]

I've had this difficult emotion so many times, but in this moment of allowing, I can see the self it creates. I can see the disposition it creates. I can see the usual strategies of response it creates. And Dogen Zenji says, in that seeing, There's an awakening. And in that, just letting it be what it is, not needing to be fixed, not needing to create a new assertion of what should happen. Dugan Sanji calls that nirvana. There is a cessation. And so even in the throes of daily life, you know, the second couple of sentences that I read, Dogen's talking about when we sit, when we sit and that, this pause, experience, allow, abide, becomes the agenda of what we're doing, of what we're being.

[22:47]

it's felt and noticed more thoroughly and more subtly. But even in daily life, we can explore and discover how this can function. And we can be intentional about it. We can take a moment in the middle of the demands of our life. And then, rather than going on the internet and looking at whatever site you go to for your pause, your, what would you call it, your entertainment break in the middle of your busy doing, pause, sit in the sun, whatever.

[23:53]

Intentionally invite a pleasant experience. Just to remind ourselves that practice isn't just some formidable challenge where we just continually are looking at the things we normally try to avoid. Because there's an interesting way that we also don't give our full attention to what's pleasant. So sometimes that can be a very helpful practice. What is it to savor a moment that's pleasurable? What is it to feel the subtle releases in the body? when the sensation, the pleasant sensation of the sun on your skin is present?

[25:04]

And how does your breathing respond to that soothing experience? And how does your mind? And what is it to just let yourself abide in that? And this is another dimension of Shraddha, this trust. There's a way in which we earn our own trust by being a compassionate and skillful person with our human experience. When we engage practice in this way, we trust it more. When we define practice as some kind of harsh, onerous demand, we're hesitant.

[26:28]

in the dedicated way, we are doing it because it's good for us, because we should. But that's a kind of a brittle engagement. The next factor in the five faculties of awakening, the first one is sraddha and the next one is virya. In the Pali, in the Sanskrit, the concept ranges from persistence, diligence, devotion, energy. And as we become skillful in how we're engaging all the different states of being, There is a quickening in our being.

[27:35]

When we taste directly that some aspect of practice lessens our suffering, that nourishes us in a way that's restorative. We need persistence when some part of us wants to practice and some part of us doesn't want to practice. Then it's like, okay. Some part of us wants to be present in the moment, some part of us wants to fantasize, relive that argument, worry about that terrible thing that's going to happen. So we need persistence. As we become more skillful, as we start to see that practice, literally, relieves suffering and facilitates liberation. We move from that persistence and we move towards, earlier I used the word devotion, devotion in as there's an enthusiastic commitment, an enthusiastic involvement.

[28:51]

So rather than a reluctant, engagement and enthusiastic engagement. And then even that ripens. When we're just the experience on its terms and not as an expression of our agenda, it just becomes the dynamic play of the moment. It becomes more like an energy flow. Sometimes we can feel this between us when we're, say, especially someone we're close to, and we're at odds with, and the relationship feels stuck, oppressive, difficult, burdensome.

[30:00]

And then there is some kind of engagement and something shifts, and the interaction becomes enjoyable, something enlivening. We can feel the shift in the energy. And our life is made of interactions. And this energy is at play in all of them. And then the next factor is sati, mindfulness. What's happening now?

[31:03]

different from what should happen? What do I want to have happen? What do I want to stop happening? Again, when shraddha and the energy, virya, are stimulated, it invites sati. And sati invites them. This openness, this meeting without an agenda, what's going on. And Dogen calls it, in Kaz Tanahashi's translation, receptive samadhi. Samadhi, continuous contact. But we're receiving the moment.

[32:10]

We're receiving the experience. We're not asserting an agenda upon it. We're letting what's happened, happen. And the other attributes of sati are... It's not vague, it's clear. And this is what the energy, the energy will stimulate a clarity. One thing I'm not going to talk about tonight is directed attention. I'll come back to that at another time. He's about to start talking about it. But let me just say this.

[33:14]

In this fascicle, you know, when Dogen talks about receptive samādhi, which is Kaza's translation of Jiji Yuzamai, self-receive use. G, G, U. Self-receive use. That would be the literal translation. The skillfulness of acknowledging and realizing the experience of being alive is utterly subjective. in the occipital lobe where we process neurologically what's taken in through the eyes.

[34:23]

80% of the process is involved with other parts of the brain and 20% of the process is involved what's coming in through the optical receptors. So we get We get 20% experience and 80% of what we relate to that 20%. So it's intensely subjective with all the senses. So Dogen Zenji says, let that be what you're aware of. This is the ground, this is the activity, the territory of sati, open awareness. And what is it to make it continuous in contrast to just being caught up in a turmoil?

[35:45]

And as that starts to happen, then we move towards continuous contact. And when we get a taste of continuous contact, almost every single one of us thinks, this is it. I'm doing it right, finally. This is the Zen experience. And in a way it is. But so is every other moment. But it's like in continuous contact with what's happening now, the energy that's usually dissipated into all the workings of the mind. the desires, the aversions, the conflicts, that what's happening now is almost dream-like, ghost-like.

[37:05]

And then as the attention, the receptive attention is sustained, it becomes more vibrant. And then the last factor is prajna. Insight. And as this, as what's happening now becomes more vibrant, how it's manifesting is more evident in contrast to the stories I have about it. In contrast to the emotions I'm inclined to associate with it. In contrast to the ways in which my attention is diverted into something else. And when the moment speaks, when the experience speaks, when the experience illustrates the nature of what is,

[38:12]

offers a clarity. It offers, in some ways, a simpler, you know, in part of this, Dogen says, a simple. One translation, Shohaka Kamoras, the Buddha Tathagatas together have been simply transmitting the wondrous Dharma. It has... It's the busy mind that's enormously complex. Presence is simple. What is, is a simple event. It's thoroughly dynamic in its simplicity. When it's energized, that experience

[39:21]

has a straightforwardness to it. And it lets us see, sometimes by contrast, sometimes its simplicity shines a light on our more usual complexity. Sometimes we see through we see a usual pattern of behavior, and we see through it. I have habituated this definition about this topic. And now we just see it as a construct. So these factors, in some ways I'm implying they're sequential. They are... Sometimes they're simultaneous, sometimes it's the other way around, you know?

[40:33]

We have some insight and that entices us into exploring the other factors and engaging them. Sometimes one is strong, sometimes the energy is strong, but the skillfulness of not letting it stimulate the different varieties of consciousness that can come up. So we're energized, but we're agitated. But one thing it can do, it can invite us into considering and reflecting upon the notion that this human existence is a process. that we're all in the throes of. And that it is possible in the midst of this process. Interestingly, without being as concentrated or as settled as most of us who practice think we need to be, without being that settled, we can pause and notice.

[41:45]

And of course, we'd rather be serene and deeply concentrated. But the usual workings of our consciousness have so much to teach us. The usual workings of our consciousness is what's operating usually. This is who you usually are. So how instructive to start to have more insight, more engagement, more skillfulness around it. And as Dogen says, It's not actualized.

[42:49]

Without the practice, these are just concepts. But with the practice, we tasted. And when we tasted our confidence, our trust, our willingness to involve it, come into being. And as we taste it and we engage it, we experience, we experience firsthand the liberation that all the great sages teach. 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.

[43:55]

Your financial support helps us to continue to offer the Dharma. For more information, please visit sfzc.org and click Giving. May we fully enjoy the Dharma.

[44:11]

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