Thank you. Thank you

[06:56]

Yesterday I mentioned this image, mostly from early Buddhism, of being a stream enterer. And then what I was mentioning yesterday was then it's somehow the image of entering the current of practice. It got attached to the notion of rebirth. Once you've entered this stream. You want to deviate. And inevitably. You. In the next rebirth. You are. Several rebirths. You'll. Awaken. You'll be liberated. From the cycle. Karmic cycle of being. I think in a way.

[08:38]

Zen has the same proposition, but in an entirely different way. I know that doesn't make any sense. That when we think of a current, we think of the energy of the movement. water and when we think of existence you know there's in its impermanence it has a movement and then what is it to make our effort to practice entering the stream, the image of it is discovering what it is to harmonize with what's already happening.

[09:48]

And even more thoroughly give over to it, immerse in it. Even though there's lots of indications to point to something opposite than this, we're settling into that current of Dharma. In some ways, following the schedule, attending to the details of the forms. It's like they're obliging us to. give over to these details, bring our attention, our commitment, our energy to them.

[10:54]

And I think most of us do and complain while we do it. within ourselves it's somehow we have an uncertainty, an ambivalence about what it is to thoroughly give over, what it is to thoroughly amass. Sign to the engine starts up. And it's like, really? So peaceful and quiet. There's a coin I'd like to mention now.

[12:07]

Now that we're settled in and we've taken care of all the early Buddhism. we can enter the more refined world of Zen. And both, they both early Buddhist teachings of early Buddhism, in particular the teachings of Anapanasati, and the Zen, that are embodied in the koans, they both take a somewhat indirect approach. And in a way, it's inevitable because what we're talking about is something that goes beyond concepts. So if you think you can package them inside of concepts,

[13:13]

And it just doesn't work. Like in Anapanasati where it says, and then there's joy, itti, and then there's pleasure. Or along with the joy, there's pleasure, sukha. The antithesis of dukkha. Sukha is the unpleasant, and Sukha is the pleasant. And what both have, and then in Zazen, we could take the admonition and say, the admonition of Zazen To do as little as possible.

[14:15]

Or better yet, just experience the experience that's being experienced. And in both traditions, they're pointing at concentration. When something aligns within the vitality of being a person, when something aligns between that and with the vitality of all being that's already existing, It creates a current.

[15:27]

It creates a way in which we our very personal existence, which in many ways and in many other circumstances, does feel discordant, oppositional, ambivalent, upsetting, you know, mysterious. When there's, as Dogen says, when you find yourself where you are, actualizing the fundamental point, when you find yourself where you are in harmony with moment. Like often as we continue with sushin, there's a way in which our body, our mind, our ways of behaving start to harmonize with the proposition of sushin.

[16:37]

hey, this is what we're doing. We create a new normal. It's always mystified me how much we cling to our normal and then we go into shashin or an intensive retreat, meditation retreat, and lo and behold, in a matter of days we create a new normal and we harmonize with it and as we start to harmonize with it it starts to both be ordinary be more evident.

[17:43]

As we settle into Sashin, we start to notice the workings of our being. Maybe you've settled into certain routines. After we've finished this part of the morning schedule, I reward myself with sitting on the roof, having a cup of coffee, taking a nap. Not to say that any of those are not appropriate. To just say that in our human nature, we want to negotiate. Okay, I'll give over here. I'll be a good Zen student.

[18:45]

But over here, I want my reward. Or I want to resume the familiarity of me being me. And then not that as some vile inappropriateness, everything has the opportunity of illuminating the nature of what is. To study the self. to attend in a very practical manner is often facilitated by being more settled, being less agitated and distressed.

[20:04]

And not to say those qualities are inappropriate, are the grind of awakening. But to say, especially as we're exploring new territory in our own being, in our own way of behaving, in our own mental, emotional patterns, in our own way of conceptualizing our relationship to being, Some settledness is good. So Anapanasati says, and then engage this and let it soak in. And as it soaks in, feel the energy of it. Feel the energy of entering the street.

[21:10]

Do what you're doing. Taste what you're tasting. See what you're seeing. Smell what you're smelling. Feel what you're feeling. Think what you're thinking. In a way, experiencing is in complete accord with doing As little as possible. And letting. There's a giving over. To the experience. There's a giving over. To the details of the experience. And this is the nature of concentration. And concentration has two. main attributes and one is what we might call focused concentration shamatha and it's very interesting the adjectives that get added into shamatha sometimes the adjective is stopping stopping the endless

[22:42]

of miscellaneous thoughts and feelings that are not quite, that we're not quite aware of. It's like letting a hundred birds out of a cage all at once. They're fluttering all over the place. And our attention is jumping all over the place. invite that to settle? Can we give it the space, the attention to help it settle down? And this focusing

[23:43]

what if we just reduce the content to a smaller field of experiencing? What if we just experience the details in the body, physical sensations of breathing in and breathing out? What if we experience the details of Breathing as breathing in. Pause. Shifting. Breathe into the disposition of breathing out. Pause. Shifting into the disposition of breathing in. This kind of attentiveness can be called stopping. We stop the discursive mind.

[24:49]

It can be called calming. Because in the focusing, many of the arisings for us are upsetting, agitating, or stimulate our grasping. So when we reduce it, then we... It invites a calming. And it's interesting because almost everyone, when they have a moment of focused concentration, there arises for them a notion of affirmation. This is it. necessarily with a conceptualization or an articulation.

[25:55]

Experiencing the experience has an affirmation. It's like in that moment we're discovering, we're realizing what it is to be alive. in us says yes. And often that kind of focusing is initiated by a very dedicated, directed attention. In the Zen world, We could say that's the methodology of Rinzai Zen, where you engage strenuously in a very particular methodology around breathing.

[27:08]

And then in the Sotho world, more of a giving over to what's arising whatever it is and however it is there's a giving over that draw that shifts how it's being related to it shifts it from well I'm going to think about the construct of the conceptualization Oh, tomorrow. What am I going to do tomorrow? What am I going to do after Shashin? So when we look at that, when we engage in that way, we get stirred up. Now, when we engage it as an experience, when we engage it as a movement of energy,

[28:23]

impermanent. It becomes a mere arising that can be experienced and allowed to fall away. And I would say the accompanying methodology, which is a bit of a Soto Zen heresy, but I'm going to say it anyway. I once asked Shohako Okamura, we were talking about Dogen's teachings on Zazen, which I hope to get to today. And I said, and what about attending to the breath? And he immediately said, don't. So here I go with my heresy. is this we follow the breath the breath runs the show the breath is in charge and we attend to what arises in the world of physical sensations

[29:57]

as we allow the breath to breathe the body. And maybe it's not such a big coincidence that I was taught a practice like that when I was in early, practicing early Buddhism, the Ramadan Buddhism. But still, Thoughts are, this is how we tune into something fundamental in the human organism, in the aliveness that's there, in the energy that's often infused into the thoughts, the feelings, the mental constructs. the memories, the anticipations, the judgments.

[31:01]

And that the breath can teach us allowing whatever's happening to happen. And allowing the breath, as I quoted Prajnatara saying earlier in the Shishin, we study this sutra. hundreds and thousands of times. Now, in the Zen world, there's a classic story in relationship to Nangaku and his student Basso. And in one ways, it's quite straightforward. And then in another way, it's bottomlessly intriguing in what it's proposing.

[32:07]

Basso is doing zazen. Nangaku says, what are you doing? And he said, I'm doing zazen. And why are you doing zazen? To become Buddha. Nangaku starts to polish a tile. I know almost all of you have heard this before, so I'll go through it quickly. Nangaku starts to polish a tile. Basso says, what are you doing? And Nangaku says, I'm polishing the tile to turn it into a mirror. Of course, the first teaching is zazen is not about doing. Zazen is about being and being, being zazen, being the arising experience of the moment.

[33:15]

So it doesn't have a goal. It has an attentiveness to the process of arising. In the koan, Nangaku, you know, says what he's saying. And then Basso says, well, what would you say? How do you, what is it to practice Zazen? And Nangaku says, if the carton horse won't go, do you beat Or do you beat the horse? Do you attend to the content of what's arising?

[34:25]

Or do you attend to the energy and the movement of the process of arising? The experience of it. How it ripples through your thoughts and feelings and physical being. So that's the card. And then Dogen comes along in one of his fascicles, usually translated as acupesha. He says, you beat the horse, you beat the cart. More or less, you beat everything. When you're practicing, you experience everything.

[35:30]

I think of it a little bit like when we enter Sashin. There's so many adjustments to be made. Maybe you're sleeping in a different room, in a different bed. You're adjusting your schedule. You're eating a different diet. All these things are influencing your physical and emotional well-being. And even if you're a resident in the building, still the machine schedule makes its own kind of demands. So we beat everything. We beat the schedule. We beat the diet.

[36:44]

We beat our body. We beat. Our own mind. And maybe rightly so. They're all asking for some kind of attention. Okay, what is it to practice with this body? What is it to practice with this state of mind? What is it to practice with not having gotten enough sleep last night? should I eat if I'm just going to be doing zazen all day? Can we take it all up? Can we take up so-called mundane aspects of life and relate to them as a practice?

[37:46]

not as some self-indulgent, trivial, you know, why am I worrying about how much should I eat? Aren't there more lofty inquiries I should be making? If that's what's arising, if that's where the energy is, if that's what's preoccupying your mind, So be it. Attend to it. It's your con. What is it to relate to it skillfully in a way that allows it to harmonize with the energy of Sushin? And then part of the marvel of Sushin is that

[38:52]

No matter how we've negotiated all that or are still struggling with it, just the very repetition of staying in the stream, we start to be moved by the current. We start to feel at home in this new normal. And then the knack is to not waste this opportunity to let this new normal be greeted with the dedication of practice that brought you here. To let this this new environment be enlivened by your vow of practice.

[40:02]

New normal as it may be, and ordinary as it may quickly be becoming, it still has an extraordinary opportunity within it. My way of thinking about it is we're more perceptive. We're more available in attending to what's arising. As we concentrate. Either in the singularity of focused. Or in the flow of. Continuous contact. As we concentrate in both. The energy is concentrated.

[41:11]

The energy of being. The energy of experiencing. And. Quite likely. We'll be experiencing. The moments of settledness are more palpable. beauty of the sun shining in the window. As I came in the door, I thought, oh, we've left Seattle and we're back in San Francisco. Or maybe we're a little further south. Maybe we're in L.A. And then it's not only the delights that get enhanced, the darkness, the difficulty can be enhanced too.

[42:16]

It can be energized. And there, the training for us is, can we attend to the process and not become distressed by the challenge of the content? ignore the distress but to make space around the difficult experiences in a way that gives us the capacity to hold them with compassion the painful difficulties in our life Are yearning for compassion.

[43:21]

And the painful difficulties. In others lives. Are yearning for compassion. Their own. And ours. Yeah. That's why one of the. Beautiful. Things in Shishin. is the sensitivity and thoughtfulness with which we relate to each other. Not to say you can't be thoroughly annoyed by the way that person's coughing in his endo. Right on cue. can also hold it, see an opportunity for compassion.

[44:22]

It's part of entering the stream. It's part of harmonize with the energy of being. So Dogen Zenji says, beat the horse, beat the cart. Maybe the word beat is a little unfortunate there. Maybe it would be better to say, energize through experiencing the horse. Energize through experiencing the cart. So thoroughly. In the workings of being. That we forget the self.

[45:38]

The self become the little to the small self. As it's sometimes called in Zen. Becomes this intriguing. mix of complexity and the fruits of a lifetime. If you think this emotion that's authority within you, if you're thinking this is the first time I've ever felt it, it's not the first time it's ever occurred. It has a journey through your life. It has resurrected in a whole variety of places and circumstances. And now, this beautiful moment to experience it.

[46:46]

To be intrigued the workings of the self rather than somehow hold on to some notion of the self as a permanent entity separate from all other being, all other energies. Can you bring this forth? In Anapanasati, it just puts it very cryptically. It says, pitti, sukha, experience, harmonize. Maybe they go the other way around.

[47:57]

Maybe it's experience, harmonize, piti, sukha. Maybe. It may be the sign of the air purifier. with its own beauty. Maybe the hammering of the forms to take the concrete that's going to make the catchment basin for the runoff water. Maybe it's a delightful thought. Finally, we're learning how to turn cities into a place that harmonize with nature.

[49:07]

Maybe we will see things about ourselves that will help us make sense of ourselves. It will help us settle the self on the self. That will instruct us and support us in being ourself. Often the teachings come in what might seem almost absurdly simple. experiences. But when we attend to them, sometimes those absurdly simple experiences can open up and we can feel the interconnectedness of that experience to how we've

[50:31]

casually shaped our life. To see the food and think of the kitchen staff so diligently preparing it. Let's hurry up. We have to have this out. By 12, 12, you know, exactly. And it has to be hot and it has to be delicious and it has to be plentiful. Our life being supported so generously by others. what our practice offers us.

[51:38]

Despite the distress we might feel in different moments or the concerns, can we enter the merciful ocean? Thank you. next period of that will begin at 1125.

[55:30]

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