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. I'm happy to be here. It's been a while since I had a chance to do a session. Yeah, this is my first one this year. Kind of unusual. So, for me it's a chance to remind myself of some basic focus, basic orientation. the practice of Zazen the practice of Shikantaza what I read during Zazen this morning from Shizuki Roshi focusing on the body so today I'd like to focus mostly on the body I have a few

[01:28]

Kind of announcement things. I'd like to make a list here. Let's see. So regarding Dokusan during Sashin, I would like to see everyone. And so even if you haven't requested it, you're invited. and I request it. But it's a big group, and so they'll be brief, brief Doka-san, five, ten minutes. Maybe we'll simplify the form and just have one full prostration before and after. But I won't do Doka-san today. I'll do Doka-san tomorrow. And then the third day of Sashin will be a silent day. And so we'll just sit together and bow together.

[02:32]

So I thought to remind you that probably at least once a day there'll be some posture adjustment, someone going around, either the tanto or myself, and also will be... training the shusau and doing some posture adjustment. So that could be happening during a kinhin as well as tazen. I noticed in the service this morning that I felt the chanting energy for the... the buddhas and ancestors was good at the beginning and then it then it began to flag particularly when we when we got past kezon so it's uh so as a reminder to kind of to maintain the energy it doesn't mean that it has to be so fast but the pace should can should be consistent and the energy should be strong throughout so

[03:52]

pay attention to that in the services during this sashin in particular and through the whole practice period. So, I guess that's it. During the reading this morning, I read Suzuki Roshi saying, okay, various parts of your body are each... practicing zazen doing zazen independently and he said so if your mudra is having difficulty then your whole body can help your mudra so I was thinking well what kind of mudra what kind of difficulty would my mudra get into so I was thinking oh Well, it might get into this kind of difficulty.

[04:54]

I don't know if you can see. That kind of difficulty. I've seen that happen. Or experienced that. Or sometimes it could get into this kind of difficulty. Total mudra collapse. Sometimes it gets into maybe a more subtle difficulty where the thumbtips just kind of drift a little. Or sometimes they get into a more intense difficulty where the thumbtips kind of go like this. So then I was asking my collarbone how to help. How would the collarbone help the hand mudra? There's a relationship. Collarbone, shoulder, arm.

[05:57]

How does the collarbone help the... The collarbone actually is practicing its collarbone tazen, right? So Suzuki Roshi is very clear that the collarbone is practicing independently. For the collarbone to rush over and help the hand is not... the collarbone practicing independently. The collarbone actually has to practice its own zazen. If the collarbone is practicing its zazen, then that's helping the mudra of the hands. You understand? So this is the way the whole, the entire universe is practicing. So the mountain practicing, mountain Zazen, can't do the Tassara Creek Zazen. Tassara Creek has to do Tassara Creek Zazen.

[07:00]

It can't rush up and help flag rock, do flag rock Zazen. So this should be pretty clear conceptually. But the experience sometimes gets kind of muddled, maybe. Sometimes it's hard to tell how the different parts of the body are doing independently. Of course, the different parts of the body are also related and interdependent. But in this talk, Suzuki Roshi was emphasizing the independence. Sometimes he also combined the two by pointing the word independency. So the dependency and the independent combined in independency. But it's important to know that each part is doing its own zazen.

[08:05]

And each person here in the zendo, each person doing your own zazen is supporting everyone else, actually helping everyone else people having various kinds of difficulty maybe and so for you to help each person with their difficulty best way is for you to practice zazen completely and wholeheartedly so this is I'd say a very advanced practice practice of shikantaza is a complete sincerity so a complete sincerity means that you don't want anything else and you don't hide anything from yourself in zazen you're not hiding anything from yourself and you don't need anything else you're simply completely wholeheartedly present

[09:15]

Some schools of Buddhism may think, well, this is too difficult. So we need various ways of getting to this, various kinds of teachings to attain this level of sincerity. So it's, to me, a profound teaching of this school of... A beginner's mind Zen, we could say. Beginner's mind Zen is that you already have everything you need. You don't need to go get something else. In fact, usually what we encounter is something that we've already brought in that's extra. So some kind of karmic interference with simply being present, sincere, wholehearted. which feels like a kind of softness or vulnerability, complete vulnerability.

[10:24]

So you may notice during the session, during the course of these few days, and some of you have been noticing already with the practice period, that you are discovering certain kinds of say, resistances in your body, or you're discovering old karmic habits that are interfering with your peaceful abiding. And so then, what do you do when you have these interferences? This is a practice of letting, where that interference is, wherever that part is, let it do zazen. Wherever there's some difficulty, let that part do zazen. So, as you know, my mother died last week, and I'm noticing grieving, the process of grieving,

[11:43]

And I think grieving is really right at the center of our practice all the time. Grieving is the direct experience of impermanence. The fundamental teaching of Buddhism is a teaching of impermanence, that all conditioned things are subject to going, going, going, gate, gate. So, people try to grapple with something like, for me, my mother is dying. I was told that a few days before she died, I have a four-year-old... four-year-old nephew named Carson. Carson is pretty smart, actually.

[12:48]

And he was trying to understand, okay, what's... People are saying various things. It's his... No, it's actually my great-nephew. My nephew's son, Carson. So it's actually his great-grandmother. So my mother is his great-grandmother. But he was trying to understand what's... what's going to happen here with her dying and so he said he said I know I know it's I know what grandma's death is it's like she's going to turn into sparks into sparkling sparks and they're just going to go all the way up to heaven so The next couple days later, my mother said, I think I'll try what Carson suggested. And then my brother, my brother is Carson's grandfather, my brother said, Carson, how do you know this?

[14:03]

He said, I have a powerful brain. So I thought, well, that's pretty good. Just a release of sparks. But then there may be a substantiation of something. Oh, up to heaven. Like there's something up there that's substantial. So I think I'm a little concerned about making anything eternal. We want to make It's hard for people to accept that there's actual death. Death is as real as our attachment to being. Death is as real as our attachment to our identity.

[15:07]

So to actually face that is to face one's own identity. one's own attachment. So maybe the idea of heaven is a kind of denial of impermanence. Maybe heaven is a heretical view for Buddhists. And for some of my... evangelical Christian cousins, impermanence is a heretical view. So one of my cousins was worried, genuinely worried that my mother is going to hell as a permanent hell.

[16:11]

Because my mother also a few weeks Well, actually, when I was there this summer, she knew she was eventually going to die, and so people were asking her her view. And she would say, I think people make their own heaven and hell. So she had some, I think, capacity for not knowing. and was actually very much at peace with that. So it may be useful to look at something simple, like we're attached to various things. We don't like the distress of the withdrawal symptoms when something that we're...

[17:16]

Condition two goes away. There's this, I guess now it's an old song, Huey Lewis and the News, way back. When was that? Anyway, the song that just popped up in my mind is, I want a new drug. I want a new drug. One that makes me feel the way I felt. Or one that makes me feel the way I feel when I'm with you. I think that's it. One of those drugs, right? So I could say, well, I want a new drug so that my mother is not dead, so that I feel the same as when my mother's living, right? Whenever someone goes away, you know, that's maybe that feeling. So actually, I was, when I heard that song, I was kind of embarrassed for Huey Lewis. I thought, ooh. And then I thought, well, this is... In what sense is he saying this?

[18:31]

Is this a confession? Oh, okay, well, this may be good to have a confession. This is the way I feel. I want something to take away the pain. of whatever it is that I've lost. So if I use the example of tobacco, I quit smoking in 1971. I'd been smoking more and more heavily, so at that time I was... 25. So I'd been smoking for about 10 years from the time I was 15. It was a great act of rebellion. My parents thought it was terrible. So that gave me some satisfaction. And then I smoked more and more and then it became the last few years before I stopped I was smoking pretty much constantly.

[19:38]

Whenever I didn't absolutely have to do something else with both hands. Sometimes I was playing guitar and singing folk songs and I have a harmonica holder. You can also put a cigarette in your harmonica holder. I'd say just the most extreme, I smoked an entire carton of Camel cigarettes hitchhiking from Berkeley to Chicago, probably in 1970 or something, 69. And I got it right all the way, actually. The other guy who was driving also smoked, so we each had our carton of cigarettes.

[20:45]

So we had first-hand smoke and second-hand smoke. But then, at some point, I was sitting. I don't think I was doing Zazen yet, but I was just sitting. I was doing the I Ching, and I would do the I Ching, and then I would contemplate what was coming up with the I Ching at that time. As I was considering whatever it was, I don't remember what the I Ching was saying, but I was noticing my fingers, which were brown from the tar and nicotine from the cigarettes. They were just brown fingers. And I thought, hmm, it doesn't look so good. And then I began to visualize what my lungs must look like. And it really hit me in a very powerful way that I did not want to do that.

[21:55]

I did not want to poison myself. I didn't want my lungs to turn from pink into brown. I hadn't actually seen my lungs, but I'd seen lungs of other animals, and I had some sense of what color a lung should look like, and it did not look like my fingers, the stain on my fingers. So I stopped smoking. However, I was living in a commune with a house full of people who were all smoking. Most of them were smoking. And so there were just... packs of cigarettes in various places. So for some days after that, I noticed that I would have already picked up a pack of cigarettes, taken a cigarette out, put it in my mouth, and lit it before I even realized, before I remembered that I had quit.

[22:58]

So then I'd have to, usually some place along there, I would remember, oh, that's right, I quit. Then I would have to put the cigarette out. And then I began to refine my attention and notice that just when I was reaching for the cigarette, which was just an automatic reaching for the cigarette, I began to notice, oh, there was that reaching. And then there was the restlessness before the reaching. There was some restlessness there. And then I began to notice that my... My hand didn't know what to do. My hand was feeling very awkward without having something to do. So there was that little restlessness there that I actually had to accept that. And it was hard to accept. It was hard to accept that I could just let my hand not know what to do. So I think this is the...

[24:06]

For me, it was a very instructive refinement of paying attention until I began to notice the thought that was embedded. I couldn't tell whether the thought was in the hand or the thought was in my mind separate from the hand. There are studies now about how people make decisions, and hands actually have... There's an intelligence in hands. There's a book called How People Decide by Jonah Lenner, which I read a couple of years ago. But anyway, there's an experiment in there called, I think it's something, it was done in Iowa. So it's something about an Iowa card game where they actually put stacks of cards. Well, I remember what it was. It was kind of like, it had to do with money.

[25:07]

So if you turned over a card and you'd get money, but then if you turned over another card, you'd have to pay a big bill. Or you'd pay a small bill. And each deck of cards, they were stacked, actually. So with some decks of cards, the bills were more painful. And in other decks of cards, the bills were less painful. And just turning over the cards with your hands, They put electrodes on the sensory... What do you call them? Little sensors, just putting sensors on people's hands. And so people, after a while, would begin to notice that, oh, if they picked up more cards from this deck, it was not so painful. They didn't have to pay a high price, right? And they actually were getting more money, right? But if they turned over cards from this, and you had a choice, you could just...

[26:08]

pick the ones you wanted to keep turning over. So people, after a while, figured out that they had an advantage if they picked up the cards from this pile. But what was interesting was that the hands knew it before the person figured it out in his brain. The hands actually knew it, and the hands actually indicated a resistance to picking up cards from the painful pile. that that showed up in the sensors. Anyway, that was a little diversion there. But this intelligence of the hands, for me then, was teaching me about karma when I was quitting smoking. So I never was so clear before that the the hands and the mind are one.

[27:08]

So the restlessness of the hands had to be accepted for me to actually stop smoking. So I stopped smoking 40 years ago and I just realized yesterday when I was feeling sad about my mother for a moment, I thought, oh, I should have a cigarette. I had that thought somewhere in my hand maybe. Was it in my hand? And I noticed, oh, that's interesting. Forty years later, still have that, oh, that would be, that would be a little comfort, right? That would be, maybe not the whole thing, but it would be the answer to Huey Lewis, right? Maybe an old drug. and I have an old drug, one that I used to think was great comfort.

[28:17]

So here, sasheen is an opportunity to grieve. When you really understand yourself, when you understand how selfish, I'll put it for myself, when I understand how selfish I am, then I know I really need to sit zazen. And sometimes I forget how selfish I am. But then I'm very grateful to the practice that keeps putting me back to zazen. And then I have to find out again, oh, I'm really this selfish. The things that come up in my mind, that arise in my mind, the ways in which I'm caught by things, the ways in which I'm I would like something to be different in my body, the way I'd like something to be changed in my environment so that I don't have some discomfort.

[29:22]

I notice those kinds of karmic configurations, those karmic formations become vividly clear and so the texture of that experience is what I can say is grieving. The texture of the experience of acknowledging one's attachment is grieving. And of course, you know, there is in the studies about grieving where first there's denial and then there's resistance of various kinds, anger. Finally, People get beaten down enough, maybe, and accept, but often people don't. Often people divert from grieving and do something else, like take up smoking, or take up eating, or take up drinking, or take up traveling, or take up work, working and working.

[30:37]

So there are ways in which the natural unfolding of realization, of attachment, gets diverted and doesn't happen. So sometimes this gets diverted for days, weeks, months, years, lifetimes. A whole lifetime spent. without this purifying practice of shikantaza. So, to look at the practice of body awareness has been part of the Dharma teaching from the very beginning. Suzuki Roshi is talking about looking at the parts of the body appreciating that each part of the body is doing zazen. This is actually in the teaching of the Satipatthana Sutta, the foundations of mindfulness.

[31:47]

So I wanted to refresh your memory by reading some of the Satipatthana Sutta. This is from the Maha Satipatthana Sutta, the four foundations of mindfulness. from the translation by Maurice Walsh of the Diga Nikaya, from the Diga Nikaya. So, it goes like this. Thus have I heard. Once the Lord was staying among the Kurus, there is a market town of theirs called Kamasandama. And here the Lord addressed the monks, Monks! Lord, they replied, and the Lord said, There is this one way to the purification of beings, for the overcoming of sorrow and distress, for the disappearance of pain and sadness, for the gaining of the right path, for the realization of nirvana, that is to say, the four foundations of mindfulness.

[33:02]

What are the four? Here a follower of the Way abides contemplating body as body, ardent, clearly aware and mindful, having put aside hankering and fretting for the world. She abides contemplating feelings as feelings. She abides contemplating mind as mind. She abides contemplating mind objects as mind objects. Ardent, clearly aware and mindful, having put aside hankering and fretting for the world. So that's the opening of Four Foundations of Mindfulness. I'm responsible for changing the pronoun. I've always loved the word ardent. clearly aware, mindful.

[34:03]

Having put aside hankering and fretting. So please put aside hankering and fretting. You may notice some hankering and fretting coming up. So what to do? Well, you can take this as guidance. Can you set aside, oh, here's some hankering. I want a little more of this. Here's some fretting. I'm worried about something. So this is a peaceful practice. And the four foundations are simply body, awareness of body, mindful awareness of feeling, mindful awareness of mind, and mindful awareness of objects of mind. And objects of mind then include all the basic teachings of Buddhism.

[35:10]

But then it goes into more detail on body and breath. So the whole section on the body begins with mindfulness of breathing. How does a follower of the way abide contemplating the body as body? Here, one, having gone into the forest or to the root of a tree or to a zendo, sits down cross-legged, holding one's body erect, having established mindfulness and keeping mindfulness alert. Mindfully, one breathes in. Mindfully, one breathes out. Breathing in a long breath, one knows. that this is a long breath. And breathing out a long breath, one knows that this is a long breath. Breathing in a short breath, one knows that this is a short breath.

[36:14]

And breathing out a short breath, one knows that this is a short breath. One trains oneself thinking, I breathe in conscious of the whole body. One trains oneself thinking, I breathe out. conscious of the whole body. One trains oneself thinking, I breathe in, calming the whole bodily process. One trains oneself thinking, I breathe out, calming the whole bodily process. Just as a skilled turner or apprentice in making a long turn knows she is making that long turn, or in making a short turn knows he is making a short turn, so too a practitioner In breathing in a long breath, knows one breathes in a long breath. And so trains oneself. I breathe out, calming the whole bodily process. And it continues to repeat this and concludes, And so one abides, contemplating body as body internally, contemplating body as body externally.

[37:31]

contemplating body as body both internally and externally. One abides contemplating both arising and vanishing phenomena in the body. Mindfulness, there is a body, is present to one just to the extent necessary for knowledge and awareness. And one abides independent, not clinging to anything in the world. And that, is how one abides, contemplating body as body. So one is present, just to the extent necessary for knowledge and awareness. So just to the extent necessary to acknowledge. I like the word acknowledge. Acknowledge is, I think, more in the sense of not accumulating something, but in the present. Just to clearly... see what is the arising phenomena so the arising phenomena with the breath is a very important part of this practice so this is what we're doing is a yogic practice this is a a complete unified mind-body practice and that so we do emphasize

[39:01]

sitting upright. And sitting upright means to be, say, stable, have a stable base. To notice, particularly when you sit, how you place your sitting bones on your seat. Sitting bones are not very big, and they're not so far apart. kind of like this. These sitting bones really need to be level if you can pay attention to having your sitting bones level. So that means right there you're not tilted to one side or another and so as you settle into your seat you are aware that your sitting bones are carrying the weight of your torso And that at the beginning is a level position.

[40:03]

And that then is a dependent condition or the position of the whole pelvis, right? So the whole pelvis then should be sitting in what I call kind of a neutral position so that it's not tilted to the left or the right or forward or backward from what's a neutral position. And you can feel... I say, what's the neutral position by where the lumbar vertebrae meets the sacral vertebrae right at that position at the top edge of your pelvis and your back? So if you pay attention right there to the way your vertebrae sits, and as you settle into your seat, you can slightly walk back and forth and notice it makes a tremendous difference. To have that in a neutral position.

[41:05]

Not too far forward, not too far backwards. Not leaning to the right or to the left. Dogen in the Fukanza Zengi, which we chanted this morning, talks about alignment of ears and shoulders and hips and nose and navel. So this alignment is very important. He doesn't really mention the pelvis. But the pelvis is so important because this is the foundation for your whole vertebral column, right? So if you have that correct, then it helps. Everything else come into alignment, just naturally vertebrae stacking up. I injured my back in a fall many years ago, so I have a little torque and a little twist in my T11 vertebrae. So I have to kind of work, but that actually injuring my back actually was very helpful to me in refining my awareness of my back.

[42:12]

So since I had that injury, and this was in 1980, so since then, I'm grateful actually. I was lucky that I didn't have a greater injury. But each of us has our own injuries, right? Whatever has happened is helpful to us to refine our awareness, to take good care of it. So to let the vertebrae do zazen, each vertebrae doing its own zazen, it's helpful that the next vertebrae is also doing its zazen, right? And so they can all then find their harmonious alignment. So with that, I want to also just call attention to your ribcage is attached to your vertebrae.

[43:13]

And all your ribs are moving with every breath. So when it says here in the Satipatthana Sutta that With awareness of the whole body, I breathe in. With awareness of the whole body, breathing out. Pay attention to the sensations of the breath and the movement of the ribs. So you may notice the breath in the diaphragm and the belly and the hara. And notice then as the breath fills the lungs, the breath actually wants to completely fill the lungs. And that means that the ribs expand all the way up into here, almost up into your shoulders, into the collarbone area. So the whole breath wants to happen. So you may notice that there's some habitual limitation that you have karmically accumulated that interferes with the whole breath happening.

[44:21]

So every once in a while, it's good to say at the beginning of zazen to do a little exaggerated breath. I usually say to people, at the beginning of zazen, take several deep breaths and exhale completely, meaning that you push the breath out completely. You bring in your diaphragm and kind of flush the stale air out of your lungs. And that kind of stimulates a fresh start. And then, of course, your old habits will begin to creep in. But the breath will begin to find its own natural, full expression. Thank you, kitchen. So for the people in the kitchen to do zazen,

[45:22]

is for each part of the kitchen. Everything in the kitchen is also doing zazen in its own way, and each person is doing zazen in the kitchen in their own way. And so the best way to help the kitchen is for for you to take good care of your vertebrae. Now, I find that it's actually helpful for me to be honest with myself in concentration. It's helpful for me to be honest with myself to count the breath. Particularly the beginning of seshin, I invite you to, for the first day or two, to count your breath of course you may have some other better practice but this is a very basic practice that's helpful to establish that one is not just sitting here dreaming one notices dreaming and comes back to counting one

[46:50]

I suggest counting the in-breath with one, and then the out-breath, one. So noticing the beginning of the in-breath to say one, and noticing the out-breath to say one. Receiving the breath completely with the in-breath, receiving it... and with the out-breath releasing it completely so the one is not the breath itself but the one is just a marker and it actually brings one's attention to the breath you can say you can have a long one if you like one or you can just have a little one and be more attentive to the breath itself the whole experience of the breath itself So if you do that, one, then you've already accomplished a tremendous amount of mindful concentration, and you can have a sense of accomplishment.

[48:06]

If you should be able to go to two with the next breath, then... You have awareness of, oh, this next breath. And there's just enough memory of the previous number to know that this is two. Okay, two, the in-breath, and two, the out-breath. So it's not any particular accomplishment to go to three. Each breath is enough in itself. But if you should happen to get to 10, then you have a choice. You can either go back to 1 again, or you can count backwards. 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, 0. So when I do that, if I count down to 0, then I say, oh. Then I open my eyes wide and pay attention to

[49:17]

the rising energy in my back. Straighten up a little bit. And then, next breath, one. We are here at zero, you know. I was bicycling down the road, came back yesterday, and I noticed the sign right outside the gate says zero, point zero. So it's good to be here at zero. The end of the road, There's no through traffic. This is the place of zero. So to fully refresh yourself, I'd say this is the place of zero. So are there any questions? Is this clear enough? And you were reading the intro to it, there's a certain language that always kind of throws, and it's where it says, this is the one way that will relieve the suffering of the world and that sort of thing.

[50:52]

And, you know, like you had talked about earlier with your mother, seemed like she had a capacity for understanding, you know, heaven and hell in a more flexible, more open sort of way. It seems as though a lot of the language we have about the one way or the supreme way as being fixed. The one way or the what way? The one way or the supreme way. Supreme, huh. As being kind of fixed as though rather than it almost seemed like it would be for, you know, the line with our impermanent sort of view of the universe and it was still half of this is a really good way, or this is the way we've found so far, or this is the thing that really worked for the Buddha, try it out and see what works for you. But it's just, I don't know, it kind of reminds me more of the evangelical Christian way of, you know, the way walking in it kind of thing. Yeah. Okay.

[51:57]

There is this one way. so this teaching is one this is the teaching of this one way and it doesn't exclude so this one way is just like the as I was saying and Suzuki Roshi is saying the The mountain's practice does not exclude the river's practice. The river's practice does not exclude your own knee practice, your toe practice. That each being is fully expressing this one way. I didn't say that.

[53:05]

Yeah. So that the mountain's way, the mountain has to have a way to be the mountain. And human beings have to have a way to be human beings. It's maybe kind of a curious thing, what it takes to be a human being. So to choose to be a human being, one needs a way to actually choose to be a human being. A little different than say Olive choosing to be Olive the cat. I think Olive doesn't have the same problem. But because of our self-consciousness. So it is the ultimate way. or each one here to do zazen. This is the ultimate way. And it doesn't exclude anyone from doing their practice.

[54:13]

So, when people, or Suzuki Roshi, when people come and they say, oh, you have some, you're a Christian and you want to sit zazen, there's no problem. You can be a Christian and sit zazen. You can have the belief that is... is your understanding that's actually helping you to be completely who you are. And so to encourage that. So it sounds like, and maybe this is, we'd say, pejoratively, this is a Hinayana Satipatthana Sutta, right? So I'm giving it maybe a Mahayana commentary or interpretation. Our way is though if you're counting the breath to attain something then that's a good practice.

[55:26]

But it may be a Hinayana practice. that's a good practice if you're counting the breath just to be fully aware wholeheartedly present you can't even say it's to do anything it's just the breath being the breath zazen doing zazen say well that's a maybe zen mahayana practice. Because we are human beings so easily caught in a comparative thinking, we immediately are comparing something to another, which we have to do, because we have that tendency, we have both kinds of practice, both kinds of interpretation. So this lineage way is not to get

[56:29]

to be stuck on one side or the other. To not be stuck on one way, or not to be stuck on thinking, oh, well, then there's no way, or it doesn't make any difference. It actually makes a big difference. And it's the responsibility of each person's practice to do the supreme way. It's the responsibility of each person here to do what is completely true. So anyway, thank you for that question. Maybe I'll stop. But there's another hand up now. Another hand up. So maybe I should not stop. Another hand up. It's all phenomena and it's phenomena regarded as dharma teaching.

[57:48]

So it has lists of dharma teachings that are all reviewed in there. So it's then how to view all phenomena ultimately without being attached to any view. Maybe more on that later. Meryl. Two Meryls line up here. Meryl on the time. No, you're the one with the hand up. I was reading The Sutter, I was reading The Honesty, and then later, I was just talking to Norman about it.

[59:27]

You know, we're all just delighted that these guys get together, get all these dinners, and they cry. They eat and they cry. They always get all the wires to see and they're weak. That seems to me, you know, it's a little hard to imagine something like that happening. So, okay. Thank you. I didn't say that. that nothing to cry about that's a big nothing yeah yeah so even to have even to have no things you know that is a

[61:03]

that's very hard you know so in the we say in the you know the Lotus Sutra the turning of the wheel of the Dharma in the Lotus Sutra where people can't stand that and they get up and leave you know they're not ready to hear that that there really is no thing so It's, I think, very, very human practice. So the Greek, the great heroes, the weeping heroes, I'm glad that they're inspiring you to be more human. Thank you. It's your soul. I also was thinking about grief. I noticed in my own grieving process, just having Frank gone for these four days, which is the first time that's ever happened.

[62:15]

When he comes back, if he comes back, he'll be a different baby. He doesn't need a mother for four days. So that other baby's gone. And the way, what I was wondering, what came to mind was that bumper sticker that So something like, if you're not angry, you're not paying attention. And it sounds like, in a way, what you're saying, if you're not grieving, you're not paying attention to the fact that as human beings, we're attached to almost everything, actually, kind of constant attachment. Or at least that's my experience. So if I weren't attached, either I would be completely enlightened and I'd see no self, or maybe I wouldn't be paying attention. I wonder if that sounds right.

[63:18]

If you're not grieving, you're not paying attention. It's a great teaching. to pay attention to, as I said earlier, the texture of the experience of karmic formations changing. So paying attention to the texture of karmic formations. We say changing, but strictly speaking, they're not changing. Strictly speaking, they're not there. But we have the minds that conceive of this whole universe that we're looking at. And we put it together in certain ways and we say, oh, there's Frank. There's Frankie. There's Frankie as in my body and Frankie's in your body.

[64:23]

Really. Really in your body. Frankie's not separate. Even wherever Frankie is, he's not separate. Because Frankie's right there in your own body. But to know that Frankie actually is a construction of the mind, to know that, is also when you begin to see, oh, I know that, so I know it's changing. I know that I have an idea. I'm holding on to this idea. And now it's, in a dramatic way, it's changing. It's got to change. To receive Frankie when it comes back. To fully accept, oh, who is this? So, we're actually living in a momentary universe, but we don't... think of it, as soon as we conceive of it, we don't think of it as a momentary universe.

[65:28]

We think of it as past and future and all the relationships with people as something that has some duration. So getting close to momentary and sitting zazen, you may as you get more concentrated, you may notice there's a little grieving moment by moment. As soon as I conceive of a moment and it's gone, oh, I kind of wanted that moment. Even if I didn't like it, I wanted what I didn't like about it to be real, right? to be meaningful. If I liked it, okay, I wanted that.

[66:31]

But mostly I wanted it to be something. Because for it to be something means I'm something. It's hard. It's really hard. Very difficult practice to let that go. So at that fundamental level where this practice is to We say, gate, gate, paragate. This is moment, moment, gone, gone, moment, gone, moment, gone. And then we collect a lot of moments in our minds and make a big edifice. And then when that goes, oh, it's staggering, very hard. Well, more hands are up. And Andrea, you've had your hand up for a while, so. Yes. relationship, and in the loss of those, I think Reeves has different components.

[68:07]

My experience of it is that it has an element of attachment, that which we don't want to change, and that which we don't want to lose, and that which is just the basic remaliant feeling. And I'm remembering, as I was thinking of this over before I asked the question, I'm remembering a story that I read some great Zen master who was supposedly quite alive. His son died suddenly, and he kind of broke down, screaming, crying. And afterwards, one of his students came to him and said, you know, what's the deal here? I thought you were a great Zen teacher. And he said, I'm also a parent. And so as I'm listening to you speak, I wonder in your own experience, do you also work with grief in those different dimensions?

[69:10]

Do you see different spheres to work with them on understanding first, which is the place where we don't want things to change? And we have conditioned habits that can result if we don't recognize that our attachment is there. But does the other exhibit? I don't understand what you mean by the other. It seems to me you're describing the same thing. Okay. So that's on the one side. And what's the other side? So both are true.

[70:17]

So the taking care of itself is also in the wailing. It's also in the wrenching, bewildering, disorienting experience of loss. And I appreciate you mentioning mammals. this is very deep in our DNA so when we talk about karmic formations I'm not just talking about something that's kind of superficial this is really in our DNA we have to accept that completely So, yeah, I think... I don't... The way I heard that story was actually about Marpa, the rapist teacher.

[71:37]

And the question was, Marpa, you've been telling us that everything is illusory, everything is delusion, and now here you are wailing about your dead son. And he says, yeah. A... one's child is a very powerful delusion. So to say it's delusion does not mean it's not real. Actually, everything that we usually think of is real is delusion. At my mother's gravesite, the first thing that there was a Christian minister there, she's the first thing she said was, death is real. And I thought, yeah, death is real. Okay?

[72:40]

Let's stop. Death is real. This is the joy of grieving, right? Death is real. Okay? For more information, visit SSCC.org and click giving.

[73:17]

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