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. Good morning. Gratitude for the rain. Refreshing. Maybe it will soak into the earth. We'll see. So we've just been sitting a couple of days. In a way, we have less form during seshin. We don't have quite all the bells and whistles and drums.

[01:05]

And zazen itself is formless. Formless practice. And you might think it's kind of rude for me to introduce something as clunky as counting the breath into formless practice. Someone was telling me that crunky is like wearing clogs as opposed to form-fitting slippers. Form-fitting shoes. I think of ballet shoes or something. Dancing shoes. So here we are stumbling along with clogs. In a way, it's okay. It's maybe a kind of practicing a kind of humility.

[02:11]

So please be willing to take up the practice of a little bit, just a little bit of humility with this. breath counting practice I've been talking about but the counting of the breath is not it's not the counting it's the breath it's about being actually completely fully participating in the breath so when yesterday I was talking about the day before or whenever it was I was talking about category in your relationship with long distance sazen So the idea is to have that connection, that communication with the breath. And then refining your concentration and refining your awareness so you become one with your breath so that it's no longer your breath.

[03:17]

It's just what's happening. And In sitting, you also are becoming one with your whole environment. It's just what's happening. In the foundations of mindfulness, the third foundation, citta upasthana, is the mindfulness of states of mind. And particularly, what's particularly significant is states of mind as it relates to what creates more suffering or what creates a release from suffering. So fundamentally, as we know, it's a matter of selfish attachment.

[04:21]

So attachment to anything even something really good that attachment itself is the is because there's self involved in it because there is that delusion of self involved in it that's feeding that what we sometimes in Buddhism call poison the poison of delusion that's which then shows up as positive or negative, greed or hate, responses to things. So in mindfulness of states of mind, it's maybe helpful just to notice, while you're in the middle of your formless zazen, just to notice the states of mind that arise,

[05:26]

as how this has some quality of positive or negative, of resistance or irritation with something or attraction. desire for something. Each morning we chant the repentance verse. And then what in the essay, in the Potsukomon that we just chanted, there's quite a lot of repentance mentioned. Acknowledgement of our insecurity, of our lack of faith.

[06:29]

Acknowledgement of our selfish concern. And acknowledging that is what we do. We have a form for that. So when we chant something like that, there's a form for that. But then each morning here, we're chanting all my ancient twisted karma. from beginningless greed, hate, and delusion. Beginningless greed, hate, and delusion. And then born through body, speech, and mind. Then in this form, in this particular form, body, and this particular form, mind, and this particular form of language, how we create and contribute to greed, hate, and delusion. So maybe sometimes people go through their whole life without having a chance to chant this repentance verse.

[07:41]

So we're the beneficiaries of this wonderful opportunity to have this form of confession. Maybe some people receive the precepts and they recite that verse once and that might be it for their whole life if they don't stick around. But if they stick around here, if you stick around here and now we have built it into our every day. Maybe you didn't know when you signed up for a practice period that you would be repenting every day. But this is a form of repenting.

[08:50]

But you may not also realize that Zazen itself is repentance. Zazen itself is addressing the first line, beginningless greed, hate and delusion. There's no beginning and end to Zazen. So Zazen is a complete acceptance of everything in this moment. Even what you can't accept, what you cannot consciously accept in this moment by your practice of zazen, you are also entering the gate that goes beyond your own limited ability to accept or reject things. So Zazen itself is formless repentance and formless acknowledgement.

[10:02]

And yet within it, then what comes up in our mind, in our experience in Zazen has particular form, has particular shape. And then we have to contend with whether we like that or not. And sometimes because of the kind of tensorizing effect of sitting, things that you don't think are you show up. Or things that you think, oh, I'm all done with that in the past, shows up in a way that you realize, well, maybe I'm not quite done with that. Maybe I still have to endure. This arising into my consciousness. And be patient and compassionate. And be willing to just sit with it.

[11:10]

So in Soto Zen sometimes we say we don't give you koans, but your koans will come up. Koans will come up in your mind. Anything that you actually have unresolved is a kind of koan. And you don't necessarily know what it is. So there's one Zen student that I worked with for some time. He's a good companion. Now I can think of him as an old Buddha. But he had the experience of, in Sashin, it wouldn't come up in his everyday activity, but in Sashin, usually third, fourth, fifth day of Sashin, he would get this ache in his arm, in his right arm, pain. It would become sometimes really very, very sore.

[12:13]

And so he worked with his mudra, said, how are you holding your mudra? And thinking, oh, there's maybe some way to adjust the posture, that there's some... some problem with his posture, but it was really curious that it would come up, you know, third, fourth, fifth days, and year after year, year after year, sitting sashims, this pain would come up. And so, and then one time, he came in to see me, and he said, I understand it. I see what it is. And he had this whole experience that happened when he was about, I think, four years old, where there was a big family dinner sitting around the table in a very kind of strict patriarchal family.

[13:19]

And he was just a little kid, right? And he was hungry, and he reached for something, and his grandfather hit him on his arm. His grandfather reached over him, just slapped him on his arm. And there was a whole life bound up in that pain, in that ache, where he felt... It had a lot to do with whether he ever had permission to do anything. It had a lot to do with an intense anger that he felt. But he couldn't express. That was not allowed. Not allowed to express his anger or his rage, right? So to me it was very interesting to notice in this...

[14:21]

how this, you know, we can talk about trauma, you know, how various experiences are embedded in the body. And that I think, you know, none of us can live without some trauma. To live, to be alive is to experience. the experience of something impacting us. All kinds of ways we've been impacted. And then the ways in which then we hold that and have some... Some very complex kind of way of holding that where it can't really be understood and can't really be expressed and can't really be acknowledged.

[15:32]

So it may come up and something may come up that's kind of mysterious. And so I'm just letting... letting you know you already know that it's okay in zazen to experience what you're feeling. It's completely okay because this is a formless acknowledgement. I now fully avow. I now fully avow everything that is arising. But everything doesn't just arise at once in a way that we can understand it. So things arise in some particular form and over time, in some particular time. I'm just enjoying the rain sound.

[16:54]

So to sit with whatever's arising is, because whatever arising is yourself, even though it may not seem like it, it may be, it may seem like it's someone else, that you're aware of. But because we know that, or we have the teaching anyway, we have the teaching that there is one mind. The Buddha mind includes everything. And that what appears to be some object And our consciousness is our own consciousness.

[17:54]

This is our own particular manifestation. So because we are practicing with this boundless mind, whatever arises in it is to be acknowledged. And so there is... a sense of this acceptance being a kind of forgiveness I don't know if the word forgiveness if there's exact in the in the literature of the sutras but there is this whole process it goes back to early Buddhism with the With the practice of repentance, there was, as you probably know, the Sangha would get together every other week, with the new moon and the full moon, would get together and acknowledge the misdeeds of the past fortnight.

[19:08]

So the precepts would be read, recited, and then people would say, I must acknowledge that the misdeeds in which I harmed someone, or I was holding ill will towards someone, or I slandered someone, or I misused some substance in a way that was intoxicating. It could be any kind of substance that can be misused for intoxication. Even the Dharma can be misused for intoxication. But to acknowledge that then, to say that it's good to have someone that you confess to or some group that you acknowledge

[20:19]

misdeeds with so practice leaders have that function so you can acknowledge your misdeed to practice leaders but at the heart of it is to acknowledge it to yourself and sometimes you need to acknowledge it to someone else so that you can fully acknowledge it to yourself and sometimes that doesn't quite touch it but in Zazen you may have the clear insight into exactly what is some way in which one has caused harm. Some way in which one has caused harm and it becomes more and more subtle. Even at the level of believing that someone else is separate from me. Just having that belief at some level, we would say, is diminishing and rejecting another person.

[21:34]

So this is, in the end, a very strict practice. And we can't avoid. We can't avoid making mistakes. We can't live a life in which we have nothing to confess. So bodhisattvas know this. Bodhisattvas particularly know that because we are all in this universe in which we have both a dualistic view and a non-dualistic view, and we have to live in the world of dualism and non-dualism, we always have things to confess, to acknowledge. Sinning Zazen itself, as I said, is a formless way of confession.

[22:48]

formless way of acceptance and a formless way of forgiveness. And then within that, it may be particularly in Sashin that things come up that, oh, one must acknowledge. So for myself, much of my life has been shaped by my rage. and the resolution of my rage, various rages. Once I was walking across the parking lot at Green Gulch and one of my teachers, Harry Roberts, some of you knew Harry. Harry was trained as a Yurok

[23:52]

so in a Native American tradition. And he was always talking about the practice of walking in beauty. But I was just walking across the parking lot at Green Gulch, and Harry happened to see me. He was sitting in his pickup truck there, and he called me over, kind of waved over, and he called me over, and he said... Why are you walking like you're angry at the earth? And I was startled because I thought, I'm just walking normally. I'm not in any particular angry state. I'm just walking normally. I'm feeling pretty good. So that kind of pissed me off. Then I got a little... What's he talking about?

[25:00]

So it's kind of like, you know, how dare you talk about something that I'm not even aware of, you know? But that was... I appreciated it, too, because... At that time, I didn't really regard him as my teacher, but later on, I didn't regard him as my teacher. But at that time, I just thought, here's this old guy, and what does he know? I know he knows a lot, but then I started paying attention to how I'm placing my feet. He said, you're not respecting the earth when you're placing your feet. So it was an interesting practice to take up... How do you respect the earth when you take a step? How can the simple act of taking a step be respectful?

[26:05]

And then I did begin to... Over time, and actually many things happened, but over the next few years in my relationship with... particularly with Harry, but also with others, I began to notice my own anger more and more. And then I realized that I'd become so used to carrying this kind of anger that I just thought it was normal. I didn't recognize it, actually. Then more and more I became interested in recognizing, oh, I'm a lot of stuff and a lot of tension in the body and a lot of attention around the breath as I was doing breath awareness practice more and more I realized as oh this is this is anger and at some point I began to have more recognitions of the many ways many times that I was raging particularly at my father

[27:17]

Which interestingly enough, I think, since I just talked about one person's grandfather and maybe about four years old, I think for me it was also about four years old when I was being punished for something, I was being spanked, and I don't remember what I had done. But I knew that a certain amount of spanking was the protocol, you know? So okay, I know I'm gonna get spanked and I'm gonna get spanked a certain amount And this time, I'm not going to cry. So I made us this, because I knew, okay, there's so many times, whatever it is, maybe I'm going to be hit 10 times. And it's like, and I'm up for that. So after I'd been spanked a regular number of times, and I wasn't crying, My father said, oh, he kind of looked at me, I'm just this little kid, you know, across his lap, and he's, no, you're not getting it, are you?

[28:33]

So then he continued to wail on me, right, until I was crying, right? And at that point, I made a judgment against him as an unjust person. I thought, this person is unjust. This is my talking now. This is a four-year-old not having this language. But I had some feeling that this person... And from then on... Of course, he hadn't known what he had done by that action. But... But from then on, our relationship was divided. And I was always mistrustful and always carrying some kind of rage that I could not express.

[29:35]

So this affected our entire life. And then sitting zazen after I'd been sitting for probably 15 years or so, I think. Maybe I was about, maybe I'm 40 years old or so. Maybe later, I don't really have a particular, but I became, more and more began to realize how the anger in my body is related to my judgment on my father. So the judgment I'm holding is really a heavy burden for me. Very heavy burden. I realize I'm talking very personally, so please excuse me.

[30:43]

But the reason I'm expressing it is because it may be useful as a kind of understanding of the weight of one's little four-year-old decision decision one made as a four-year-old and holding this belief that I held and it affected everything it affected every decision I made I think from that point on and all my relationship not only with my father but with others and I'm very grateful for the practice of Zazen not because I expected anything except that at some point it just became clear that the judgment I was holding was not really affecting my father at this point but it's really affecting me it's affecting all my relationships and the anger about it had to be understood and so I

[31:53]

set many, many, many, many periods of Zazie and just seething with anger. And more and more accepting, not trying to get away from it. And more and more being willing to just stew in the juices of it and let it be what it is. Understanding finally that actually this is the practice. of being willing to be present with what's arising. Holding on to some idea of justice, I actually had to realize was a, not that there isn't justice and injustice, but there was a way in that I was holding justice that was preventing me from seeing

[32:55]

my father's care and attention. In that moment, he may have been abusive, right? Some, you know, today in this contemporary age of, oh, we want to protect everyone from abuse, I can't say I was an abused child. I was a loved and cared for child. But I was also, I would say, well, that was abusive. At some point there was a boundary in there that was crossed. But that really didn't matter because what mattered most was that I had to Forgive myself for holding on to the judgment.

[34:03]

Something like that. Forgive myself for holding on to the judgment meant, ah, okay. I'm simultaneously forgiving myself and forgiving my father. And forgiveness doesn't mean that you have to have some language for it so much as one has to be beyond language. Being willing to experience the karmic compelling power of that judgment. Experience that compelling power and not be deflected by it. To let that be held in stillness, to let that be held in a peaceful realm. So Zazen is this practice of stillness that includes everything.

[35:13]

And the extent that we are moved, that we're distorted, pushed and pulled, by our own resistance to seeing what is arising in our minds, to that extent we are compromising what is truly still. So it's helpful to have a body sitting still and refraining from physically moving we really begin to notice how the mind is moving and how very, very subtle kinds of distortions come to light. So this is then a practice of actual gratitude, of gratitude for whatever arises.

[36:19]

Gratitude is to really even to honor, you know, just to honor what arises. It may be really painful, hard to honor what is painful. So hard to honor what is unpleasant, hard to honor what is scary, hard to honor what may feel like just a bottomless pit. So in this practice of shikantaza, we're not doing anything in particular. So we're not forcing ourselves to do something to solve some problem. We're letting the problem come to light, if there is one, when there isn't any problem.

[37:36]

then no problem is fine coming to light. Let being problem-free come to light. So you don't have to stir around and look for some trouble. Just to sit is enough. But staying with it means that when difficulty comes up, you welcome it. Oh, okay. And this is the difficulty that's coming up now. As a gift. This is actually a gift and it's not something that I have to do anything about except to include it in the field of awareness. It's fundamentally... Awareness itself is a kind of blessing. So to include it in the field of awareness is simply to... offer a kind of blessing to whatever arises. Blessing may sound like it's doing something, so maybe too much, but just maybe pure awareness is enough.

[38:48]

And as you notice, oh, there's something that I don't want to include in awareness, then that's a place to not do anything. Just to notice, oh, there's resistance here. Or notice, I don't want to include this in awareness. Or I would rather think about something else. Or I would rather go to sleep. Or I would rather, you know. I would rather compose another bumper sticker about what I would rather do. There's all kinds of bumper stickers. But then there is the one that says, I would rather be here now. So that's the one we keep coming back to.

[39:55]

I would rather be here right now and not turn away from what is arising. In honor of forgiving my father, I want to read this poem from Dick Lurie that I became aware of at the end of the movie Smoke Signals. Some of you might know the movie. It's a wonderful movie. If you don't know it, sometimes I recommend it. How many people have seen the movie Smoke Signals? Maybe almost half, but maybe a third is good. At the end of the movie, there's a voiceover, there's a lot of chanting going on.

[40:56]

It's Native American, Spokane and Coeur d'Alene tribes, or maybe nations. Some tribes want to be called nations and some nations want to be called tribes and I'm trying to be sensitive to that. I actually asked Little Bear, the Esalen group here, if he would prefer being referred to as Esalen tribe or Esalen nation. He said, that's an interesting point because in the Esalen In the Esalen group, there are some Esalen who want to be nation, known as Esalen Nation. He said they're more greedy and political. So he wants to be more spiritual and free from greed and prefers tribe. Anyway, this was in the movie Smoke Signals, which was all Native American indigenous people.

[42:06]

This is called Forgiving Our Fathers. And the poet's name is Dick Lurie. Maybe in a dream he's in your power. You twist his arm but you're not sure it was he that stole your money. You feel calmer and you decide to let him go free. Or he's the one. As in a dream of mine, I must pull from the water. But I never knew it or wouldn't have done it until I saw the street theater play so close up I was moved to actions I'd never before taken. Maybe for leaving us too often or forever when we were little. Maybe for scaring us with unexpected rage. Or making us nervous because there seemed never to be any rage there at all.

[43:08]

For marrying or not marrying our mothers. For divorcing or not divorcing our mothers. And shall we forgive them for their excesses of warmth or coldness? Shall we forgive them for pushing or leaning? For shutting doors? For speaking only through layers of cloth? Or never speaking. Or never being silent. In our age or in theirs or in their deaths. Saying it to them or not saying it. If we forgive our fathers, what is left? So all these experiences, you know. excesses, boundaries crossed, confusion, mixed messages.

[44:20]

All of us are acting and doing the best we can and not knowing how we affect others. how the impact of our love, how the impact of our fear impacts others. The last lines in this poem says, if we forgive our fathers, what is left? Pointing to our fear of living this practice of not knowing. So much of us have some identity that is based upon some comparison, some evaluation, some distancing, thinking that, I don't know, and we deeply feel, I don't know who I am if I don't have that to push against.

[45:30]

if I don't have that memory, that belief, that person, that image to push against. If I don't have that, it's very scary not to know who one is. Not to know one's own Buddha nature. Not to know is. To experience one's own Buddha nature. Thank you again, kitchen. Someone from the kitchen was wondering whether they were part of seshin, and you are. You're in the seshin. Going out the door in seshin.

[46:35]

The seshin is big enough. to include people who are outside the room right now. All of us are being supported by the mountains and the waters and the rice and the beans, the trees and the rain, and the people who are working in the kitchen to light the fire plan the menu so maybe we can also forgive them for being outside the door in sashim and for serving food too hot or too cold or too spicy or not spicy enough. I thought the chili was not spicy enough.

[47:41]

So there's me having a thought. And then letting it go. But then here it is again. So because of all these ways in which we are separated, that we are conjuring up ways in which we are separated. For every one of those ways, this is a question. Can we be forgiven? And can we forgive? Can we forgive ourselves for allowing the distance that someone else is creating from me to be believed, to be held onto as, oh, they're creating distance from me.

[48:58]

How can I fail to see that distance as our relatedness, as our connection? How can I fail that, to see the emptiness of them and myself and the distance. And then I realized I failed to see that. So in all these ways, this is endless, endless opportunity to humbly practice this with great humility, but that doesn't mean a lack of confidence.

[50:12]

Great confidence and true nature. Supporting great humility. Being very down to earth. Just seeing what is as it is. And knowing at the same time that I can't see what it is. That inevitably what I see is distorted. Inevitably what I see is distorted by self-clinging. is inevitably distorted by ancient twisted karma. So to acknowledge that again and again and again, say, oh, I can see that what I see is not quite so. So Suzuki Roshi said, this is an excuse me practice.

[51:14]

Oh, excuse me. I misunderstood. Very good practice. Excuse me, I misunderstood. I will listen again. I will listen more carefully. I will not hold on to any fixed views. Even though everything you're telling me seems so certain, right? I take it into account. So to take it all into account and then again say, oh, perhaps I misunderstood. So usually we think if we're apologizing, then we're lacking confidence. But disapologizing is complete confidence.

[52:15]

It really takes complete confidence to say, Oh, excuse me. This is a confidence that goes beyond self, beyond self-identity. So as you continue this sitting today, tomorrow, it's just ordinary sitting, which means just to sit and see what is. Even counting the breath is not doing anything. But please appreciate the rain. Is it falling inside 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.

[53:17]

Your financial support helps us to continue to offer the Dharma. For more information, visit sscc.org and click giving.

[53:26]

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