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 morning. And welcome to us all to be here today. Some of us are in the last day of a seven-day meditation intensive, which is the last part of a two-month meditation and practice intensive. And then the rest of you are here for something entirely different than you've been doing for the last week or the last two months. Can you imagine if each one of us tried to describe to the rest of us in detail just what we've been up to in the last two months?

[01:14]

How long it would take and we would barely have started. Probably be, I would imagine, quite wonderful and maybe a little overwhelming to hear so much detail, so much richness. What you're gonna get is the bones of what we've been doing here in the temple. Seems to me that there's always been a human instinct to turn in, to become quiet. It's a way to check in and see what's going on. What am I doing as I'm on this great journey, this great spiritual pilgrimage from birth to death?

[02:30]

What's the most important thing? How do you do that? How do you stay close to what's most vitalizing, that brings a deep contentment? I'm not sure that those of us who sat the Shashin, this meditation intensive, had those particular ideas in our head. But I think in my own mind, I think some version of it. Most of us have some exposure to formal Zen practice and have come to recognize, accept, or maybe sort of accept that meditation is in many ways the heart of that.

[03:39]

There's something about the intimacy it creates. That intimacy has a very interesting power and influence on our human lives. I think of it as similar to what a caterpillar goes through. allows it, that transforms it into a butterfly. I mean, what a miracle. What a transformation. Something just crawling along, seemingly engaged in one thing, eating. Responding to its appetite.

[04:41]

an amazing instinct to, at some moment, turn in, cocoon, and let a metamorphosis happen and then emerge as a butterfly. This year, because of the rains, there's a particular kind of butterfly that has come forth, that has bred a lot in Southern California. I don't remember the exact name. Does anyone remember? Something lady wings. Anyway, so when it rains a certain amount at the right time, and there's lots of young juicy vegetation. Those caterpillars eat and eat and eat and become butterflies.

[05:53]

There was something of a similar event last year in a Tassajara around this time, our monastery inland from Big Sur. There were swarms of them. quite enchanting. You know, there's something about butterflies, the lightness, the beauty, the harbinger of spring. And to have them, rather than just be a fleeting, fluttering, passing snippet of beauty, to have them in such abundance. And the road into Tassajara runs mostly north to south. And so at some point, following the same instinct that brought them to Cocoon, they started moving down the road, moving from north to south.

[07:00]

And they came down the Tassajara road, into Tassajara, took a right turn, went about 50 to 100 yards, and took a left turn. and headed off over the mountain south. Life is amazing. Maybe we sit to Sheen to see if we can participate in that amazing life. to have our own taste of amazement and metamorphosis. It's lovely to put it that way. And it doesn't occur too often when you're in Sachin that it floats that light and that beautiful and touches so gently

[08:16]

in an exquisitely non-harming way. Mostly it feels like you're blundering along. Trying to stay true to something. Something that has drawn you in. That even in appetite for life. Even in the midst of that, in the life it's created, in the sense of me that it's created, there's some compelling motion towards entering into the cocoon of subjective being. now?

[09:20]

What's being seen? What's being heard? What thoughts are happening? What memories? What anticipations? And in what emotions does all that stir up? How does that rattle or rind in my caterpillar life? And as we enter into it, somehow our caterpillar life has brought us here and we're going through a process that's asking us to drop it completely. There's a Zen story.

[10:22]

Emperor of China asks the finder of Zen. So I've done this. This is how I've addressed that. I've done these activities. Have I got it right? Is that it? What is it? And the response he gets is, there is no right way. There is no continuation. of the caterpillar. The caterpillar doesn't live exactly the right way, stay a caterpillar, and come out a butterfly. At some point, one way or another, the caterpillar's obliged to go beyond the constructs of being a caterpillar. At the same time, staying true to the instincts of being a caterpillar that brought it.

[11:28]

And in good Zen fashion, Bodhidharma says, empty, vast, nothing holy. Empty, boundless, nothing holy. Great obvious mystery. The article I read said that this year there will literally be millions of those but little butterflies. And I hope, as last year, Tassajara will have its share and they'll sweep down the road. They hang out for several days cluster around little patches of damp. And then, at some point, the leader blows a whistle that only caterpillars can hear.

[12:43]

And they head off. Or maybe they pull out their smartphones and think, look at the time. Let me Google map my destination. So in this way, we go into Sashin. And we enter. What's happening now? What's happening now? What's happening now? we enter into, in our tradition, we enter into a structured way of being that's been crafted over hundreds of years, maybe thousands of years.

[13:45]

We have a certain forms we adhere to. We sit upright. We allow whatever's happening to happen and experience it as fully as possible. Experience, don't grasp. Experience, let go. notion is quite simple. In that experience so thoroughly that not just the idea but the realization that this is the nature of life. It happens and then it metamorphoses into the next moment of life and into the next moment of life.

[14:58]

This is the nature of it. So like a mantra, like a continuously repeating intention. What's happening now? Experience, let it go. And it creates a kind of cocoon. And in that cocoon, I mean, I don't know how it is for a caterpillar. Maybe it's sublimely pleasant. Or maybe it's not. Maybe like humans, the caterpillar is thinking, but wait a minute. I'm a caterpillar. I eat things. I crawl around on my many beautiful legs.

[16:04]

I'm not so sure. I want to go off into something that I don't even know what it is. After the emperor gets that retort from Bodhidharma, the emperor says, his first question is, well, I've done all these wonderful spiritual things. Have I got it right? And if I haven't got it right, then what is the right thing? Vast and empty. The mystery of being. Or maybe we could say vast and absolutely full. The mystery of being. And then he says...

[17:09]

And who can say that? Who can, can a human being say that? Can a caterpillar say that? And Bodhidharma says, don't know. enter into don't know. But do we ever know other than the moment? Do we ever know the next moment? Of course, we plan it out as if we do. And we're frightened, delighted, saddened about the moment we've anticipated. And as we enter into the cocoon of subjective being, we see all those details.

[18:18]

We see them, we feel them. And we see the patterns of them. How they have been woven together to create the person we are, living the life we're living. And as we do that, I would say we feel the request, that knowledge, that insight makes of us. A tenderness, a patience, maybe a forgiveness. And then, Along with it, a diligence. We're not caterpillars.

[19:23]

We're human beings. We can't ever be caterpillars, no matter how much we wish we were. We're obliged to live this human existence. We are on this path, this sacred pilgrimage from birth to death. did that come to be? Vast and mysterious interbeing. But here we are exploring what it is to do it. And in the language of Buddhism, this knowing, this discovery, this realization, is called a wisdom that goes beyond ideas.

[20:26]

It's not knowledge. It's not a bunch of facts or opinions. It's something that goes beyond that. And within Buddhism, the person who speaks this Buddha's version of a butterfly. Avalokiteshvara. Beautiful, tender, compassionate, accepting. And it's a very interesting process because when we attend like this, for almost all of us, Learning process is more like we contract to discover something about not getting uptight.

[21:31]

We push away different experiences, different emotions, different memories. And seeing ourselves push away, start to discover how to stay present. tender, patient, forgiving diligence. And in the process, the habit energies of our being that have become calcified start to soften up. Not because we determinedly tell them to not because we know exactly what we're doing or not doing, but because we're giving over to some process that's part of existence.

[22:36]

Actually, our primary role in it is just to embody the body, hear what's being heard, see what's being seen, feel what's being felt. Maybe we could say, to stay close to being what we are. And as we do that, something... is undone. Something is allowed to bloom. In one of the Zen stories, one of the Zen koans, the teacher describes it like this.

[23:51]

In the undoing, on to nothing. Trust don't know. And from there discover what it is to be a person. Discover who you are, how you are. Can the trust flow into that? Can who you are out of being nothing, out of being everything. Thanks for that, all right. As it starts to emerge, if you think about it, how many spiritual traditions have some notion of being reborn, being immersed in baptism and re-emerging.

[25:24]

And then, well, shall we go back to being a caterpillar? It's not possible. There is no going back. So after his great pronouncements, Bodhidharma walks off. Emperor's advisor says to the emperor, did you get all that? And the emperor says, no. And the advisor says, that was a big deal. That guy, like, is really, really got it. Really? Bring him back. Advisor says, there's no going back. Even if everybody in China went after him, it couldn't happen.

[26:37]

We live the moment, and it sets us up for living the next moment. Sometimes we dearly like to go back. regret, sometimes with yearning. But the nature of our space-time continuum is that it moves forward. So we move forward. give me a whole bunch of guidelines about how to do that?

[27:46]

Do you have the handbook for being a human being? Is there a page that describes exactly the life I'm living, the circumstances, the personality I have, the psychology I have, the people in my life? Could you tell me how I deal with all of that? And as you've already imagined, the teacher just says, you've been given the great mystery. You are the person. Oh, just died there. It stopped, right? Can you still hear? Okay. Yeah? Oh, okay. Okay. You've been given the one mystery.

[28:47]

Trust in what you are. Discover how to tune into it. Discover how to stay true to it. And let it guide you. Let it show you the practices. Where we contract with awareness teaches us how to open. Where we're impatient teaches us something about patience. Our moments of joy teach us something. And I'd like to offer this poem as an illustration.

[29:52]

It was a lovely butterfly of a poet called Seamus Heaney who died in August 2013. And a couple of weeks before he died, he wrote this poem. He was dancing with his granddaughter, who was less than two years old. And he wrote this poem called In Time. Energy, balance, outbreak. Listening to Bach, I saw you years from now, more years than I'll be allowed. Your toddler wobbles gone, a sure and grown woman. Your barefoot on the floor keeps me in step. The power I first felt come up through our cement floor long ago helps your soul and heal and earths you here for real.

[31:04]

An auditorium will be just the thing for you. Energy, balance, heartbreak. At play, for their own sake. But for now, we foot it lightly in time and silently. It's true, I think, that there's some amazing, marvelous, ancient yogic tradition at the heart of awareness. But it's also true that our life is abundant in opportunities. Seamus Heaney died, apparently, very suddenly.

[32:14]

That line. That haunting line. I saw you years from now. More years than I'll be allowed. Savoring the moment. Savoring the relationship. in both letting it be nothing special, just a moment with its own idiosyncrasies, but also a moment in time, this continuous flow that we're all part of. And the offering we have the opportunity we have that we can share with each other is to be it, to be in time with each other and savor it.

[33:34]

And let it teach us something about the time of now, the time of flow, the time of being, the time of stillness, the time of activity, the time of connecting, the time of solitude. Our life is always teaching us those teachings. That's how it is. Interestingly, I misread one of the words unintentionally. He says, when he repeats it for the second time, he says, energy, balance, outbreak.

[34:41]

And I said, heartbreak. My heart was pounding. was born near where Simasini was born. And I often muse now with myself and others that something about his great heart. He grew up on a farm and he grew up in a part where there was a lot of sectarian violence. In one of his poems, it's called, When You Say Something, Say Nothing.

[35:42]

In the middle of that violence, you would constantly be stopped, your car would be stopped, or you'd be stopped, and asked, where are you coming from? Where do you live? Who do you know? And the mantra of the time was, when you say something, say nothing. Don't know. A different kind of don't know. He grew up in that, and yet he went on to lecture at Oxford, at Cambridge, at Yale, at Harvard, to win a Nobel Prize, to have all sorts of acclaims and awards. And he was still a farmer's son. It's funny, in the midst of this constant change, part of what can be relished about our human life,

[36:53]

is remembering our core, remembering our heart. And the theme of this practice period, of this Sashin, in a way, has been the Sutra of the Heart, the teaching, the sacred teaching of heartfulness. Maybe it's heartfulness and heartbreak. Maybe they can't be separated. Knowing he was close to death, here's what Seamus said. He said, walk on air despite your better judgment.

[37:59]

And then in reassurance to his wife, he said, don't be afraid. Maybe this entering into greater being, entering into the fact that we're intimately connected with all being, and we don't know what's going to happen. Maybe it's like walking on air. But maybe if we walk on air, it adds its own kind of magic, that the moment sparkles, that it teaches us. how to live, that it invites us into a precious time of living.

[39:07]

And maybe it teaches us that that's abundant. And maybe Zen practice says, yes, it's abundant. And there are ways to facilitate abundance. There are ways to recognize it, realize it, partake of it. And as the teacher, Yangshan, said to the monk, become a person. Let these teachings be not just some kind of disguised scolding you for who you are, but let them be some

[40:30]

Sutra of the Heart that lets you be heartened, lets you discover who you are in a way that when you're dancing with your toddler or granddaughter, you can see you're dancing with life. You're dancing with the fragility of life. In time. For Shofra. Energy, balance, outbreak. Listening to Bach, I saw you years from now. More years than I'll be allowed. Your toddler wobbles gone. Pure and grown woman, your bare foot on the floor keeps me in step.

[41:39]

The power I first felt come up through our cement floor long ago. It palps your soul and heal and earths you here for real. An oratorio would be just the thing for you. Energy, balance, outbreak. I play for their own sake. For now, be footed lightly in time and silently. 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. 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.

[42:42]

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