Good morning. Good morning, teacher. So welcome to Pringold Farm and Zen Center and construction project and bakery and garden, guest program, creek restoration, and much, much more. I thought it might be comforting to you to know that the other morning, as I was coming to the Zen Do to offer incense, the path I usually follow was completely gone.

[01:00]

So if you can find the Welcome Center, they have lots of information while we're under construction of how to get around Green Gulch. So anyway, please be patient with us and we're all in the same boat. I want you to know. So here's a favorite poem written by Kay Ryan, our very talented friend and neighbor in Marin County. She's the winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the 16th Poet Laureate of the United States. And she's also a very, very nice human being. If she only had a minute, what would she put in it? She wouldn't put, she thinks. She would take. suck it up like a deep lake, bloat indiscriminate on her last instant, feast on everything she had released, dismissed, or pushed away.

[02:06]

She would make room and room as though her whole life of resistance had been for this one purpose. On the last minute of the last day, she would drink and have it. ballooning like a gravid salmon o'er the moon. So while I was on vacation this last month in Norway, I heard about a condition that's brought on by absorption in the contemplation of sublime beauty. And it's called the Stendhal syndrome.

[03:09]

It's named after the 19th century French author, Stendhal, who wrote about this experience on a trip to Florence, where he had gone... who look at art. And he says, I reached a point where one encounters celestial sensations. Everything spoke so vividly to my soul. Ah, if I could only forget. I had palpitations of the heart, what in Berlin they call nerves. Life was drained from me. I walked with the fear of falling. And then in 1979, this condition was given Stendhal's name by an Italian psychiatrist who treated more than 100 people who were visiting Florence to view the art. So this condition is also known as the Florence Syndrome or hyperculturemia.

[04:13]

You probably think I'm making this up, don't you? Anyway, apparently Italians themselves are immune from maybe overexposure through the centuries. And apparently, according to this psychiatrist, so are Japanese tourists who, to their good fortune, travel in groups and at a rather rapid pace. So they don't succumb to this kind of intoxication. So the reason I bring this up is because I had a somewhat similar experience while traveling in the Norwegian countryside, for any of you who have been there. In fact, it was during one very awestruck moment, and there were many, that one of my companions leaned over to me and said, have you heard of the Stendhal syndrome? And at that very moment, she and the other two, I was traveling with three people,

[05:18]

We're standing on the deck of a ferry boat traveling up a fjord, and the sun had just come through the clouds, creating a double rainbow between the two mountains. And even though all of us are Buddhists, the only thing we could say over and over again was, oh, my God. Oh, my God. It was like our mantra. Now, I don't think that we were in danger of some medical emergency or even a falling down, but I did notice that there was a certain kind of excitation and intoxication that was taking place as a result of this repeated exposure to sublime beauty. I think some of you probably recognize this condition from listening to music or something very yummy you may have eaten. or perhaps as I did on riding on the back of a motorcycle, very fast speed when I was 21 years old.

[06:26]

Might not have gotten any older at that point. It was so exciting. So I actually looked this condition up on my friend's computer when we got back to our cabin, just to see what it had to say there. And even though I thought this was pretty amusing, at the same time, it helped me to notice something deeply familiar about myself, a kind of pattern that's been there through the years. And I think it might be something common to all of us. And what it is, is this letdown that follows the exaltation. Because like with the Italians, after a while, I was no longer very interested in looking at the fjords. You know, we began to call it fjord fatigue. You know, and I don't think it was my fault, nor the fault of the gods, but, you know, the scenery just got to be rather boring.

[07:30]

So this actually reminded me of a very similar experience I'd had when I was a younger woman living in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. And every day I'd come back from town. I'd come around the corner of this one particular butte, and there were the Tetons, you know, coming up out of the valley floor. You know, day after day after day. Summer and fall and winter and spring. And I remember saying to a friend, I feel like I am trapped in a postcard. And I think I have to get out of here. I have to leave this place. And I did. So this is one of the problems with heavenly states. The blossoms don't fall from the trees, the children don't age, and the peaches don't ripen. Bliss, bliss, bliss.

[08:33]

So I have come to think of ecstasy as a destination, as somewhat overrated. despite all of the marketing that goes into getting us to believe otherwise. And I really don't mind passing through ecstatic states, but there's not some place that I want to live, nor do I want to compare all the other experiences of my life. At least that's my wish. So it was interesting to me when I looked up this word ecstasy in the dictionary, which began as a Greek word, Ecstasis, meaning to stand outside of oneself, very akin to being out of one's mind, as if we actually could stand outside of ourselves, be somewhere or someone else, even for a while. I have a magnet on my refrigerator, the picture of Oscar Wilde, and there's a quote by him saying,

[09:41]

Just be yourself. Everyone else is already taken. So, you know, this is our great challenge. How can we settle in to being ourselves, to being where we are, who we are, how it is for us? So this is what I want to talk about this morning, this kind of longing that we have for breathtaking experience that we call ecstasy. rapture, bliss, euphoria, and so on, perhaps even enlightenment. You know, and how do we really think about these things, and what is their role in our actual daily life? I think we've all heard that the Buddha was enlightened, and I, for one, have tried very hard to imagine what that might have been like. to say nothing of efforts to actually experience such a state.

[10:44]

And I wonder, you know, what did he see when he saw the morning star and how did he feel? And did he ever have a bad day after that? I've never really allowed myself to think of that. And yet there's some part of me that wishes to humanize these archetypes. because that's what I am and otherwise they seem so very very far away so I wondered if enlightenment could be anything like traveling through Norway or viewing Florentine art is there more to it than the Stendhal syndrome with our hearts beating and our knees shaking and then just to confuse things even further one of our Dear teachers, Mel Weitzman said to me years ago, who said that enlightenment was something you were going to like? And yet I find it, as you may, very hard not to attach to my fantasies of some sort of peak experience.

[12:01]

Not only wishing for such an experience to arise but also to linger you know perhaps even forever which is the promise that most of the world's great religions make to us humans you know some eternal life and unimaginable bliss as our final reward which as we all know has a lot to do with how we behave while we're here which is another question altogether So I think we're all familiar with this tendency that we have inside of ourselves to wish for something to be better than it is, you know, and some better opportunity than this one. And I think by this one I don't just mean the one that we're all having right now, which, of course, could be better. But this one I also mean the one that came along with us at birth.

[13:06]

this life that each of us has been gifted by some miraculous means beyond our imagination. So this very life, which from its inception is marked by impermanence, by loss, by change, and by the utter absence of an abiding self on which to hang all of our stories. And it's because of that that no matter what I do, where I go, or how hard I try, my identity and my relationships and all of my experiences, very much like well-greased pigs, simply squeal and wiggle their way out of my grasp. Just like that trip to Norway and just like my breakfast this morning.

[14:10]

completely gone, without a trace. And so it will be with this talk. So it began, you know, first in the womb, gone. And then my childhood, gone. My parents, gone. My own child off to college, gone. And so I hear that it will be with my friends in my house, my job, my community, all of my vast collection of possessions, until finally this very person will be gone. And so I hear. So what's a girl to do who has absolutely everything and absolutely nothing at the very same time.

[15:14]

Well, for one thing, she can chant the Heart Sutra, which is one of the most famous teachings in all of Buddhist literature. And it echoes what I've just been saying as these facts of our life. In the very last line, in fact, It says, which means gone, gone, gone beyond, completely gone beyond. Awaken. Hallelujah. I always thought that was strange, you know, that hallelujah at the end. Like, are you kidding? I mean, you just took everything away and then it's like hallelujah. So, yeah. Interesting, huh? But this is how our teacher, Shakyamuni Buddha, tried to help us to deal with the most challenging fact of our life, which is impermanence.

[16:23]

And he didn't try to help us by changing anything. He didn't have some power to make impermanence go away and make us all permanent. Not at all. Not himself either. No, but he did have a way to help us understand our life, truly understand it, and therefore maybe not be quite so frightened or sad. And that understanding that he offered is right there in this verse from the Heart Sutra, where, as I read it anyway, we have the two extremes that the Buddha names in his very first lecture telling his monks that these are the extremes to be avoided as you traverse the path to liberation. So one extreme is this tendency that we have to interpret freedom as annihilation or nihilism. Gone, gone, gone beyond, completely gone beyond.

[17:32]

And it does sound like there won't be anything left once all of that removal has taken place. And, you know, this Heart Sutra is also the place where it says things like, no eyes, no ears, no nose, no tongue, no body, no mind, no Buddha, no path, no accomplishment, no gaining way. And then there's the other extreme, which is our tendency to interpret awakened presence or bodhi as some kind of eternal bliss. Now this once and for all kind of unity that we might have with something like a godhead, to use a word. Uniting with Brahma was the goal in ancient India of spiritual practice, to come into union with spiritual principle. once and for all.

[18:37]

So if neither one of these is true or possible, a permanent nothing or a permanent something, then what is there for us to? Wish for. Think about. Aspire to. None of the words work. What is there? Fill in the blank. What is there? what is it that we're truly seeking and what is it that we truly are? So I just want to propose that it's in the word svaha, hallelujah. That's the resolution of all dualistic propositions. Dogen proclaims this in his death poem where he says, leaping live into the Yellow River, you know, svaha. And Thelma and Louise proclaim as they drive off the rim of the Grand Canyon, you know, there's a svaha.

[19:49]

Celebration. Exaltation. But, you know, I don't think we have to wait till that very last moment in order to exalt. our life and our great fortune to be here on this amazing planet Earth. I think we can celebrate this ultimate fact in each and every moment. And we can do that by not getting caught. By not getting caught. By not being stuck. By not abiding in a fantasy of anything at all. Not a fantasy of ourselves or of our feelings, our thoughts, our inclinations, as if they're true, and that we, at all costs, will defend them. Not to get caught in heaven or hell, not to get caught with demons or ghosts, with animals or humans, and at the same time completely willing to go visit

[20:58]

have a cup of tea, enjoy a conversation, and then to move on. You know, passing through with a mind that is both flexible and opened to everything, and particularly whatever's coming next. It's a little bit, it reminded me a little bit in thinking of it as a kind of fast game at the net, you know. You really don't have time to gloat. You just have to keep moving. So I'm not sure why, but thinking about these things reminded me of another thing that had happened while I was coming home from vacation, having landed from Norway at Kennedy International and passing through the duty-free supermarket, which, as those of you who travel know, is stacked high with what are viewed as luxury items.

[22:03]

You know, starting with alcohol. And then cigarettes, perfume, and for the kids, candy. I mean, it's kind of amazing. So anyway, as I was walking through the cigarette section, I was really kind of enjoying the spectacle. You know, like, oh my God, this is amazing. And people were... grabbing armfuls and all of these things. And this man offered me a carton of American Spirits, organic tobacco. I smiled. I smiled back and I said, I hear those things will kill you. And, you know, he was friendly and he said, yes, they will, but not for a while. And I thought, that's pretty tempting, you know. I thought, you could put that on the cigarette pack. Cigarettes will allow you enough time to enjoy them before they kill you.

[23:06]

So it almost sounds like a good deal. So when I began working on this talk, I thought it was going to be all about the Buddhist teaching of moderation in all things. Christian as well, of course. you know, that the middle way between these extremes that I've been talking about of nihilism and eternalism. And then I thought, well, I don't really think that's what I want to say or even what I want to recommend or even how I want to live, you know, because I had this fear that by describing something called the middle way that you would think there was a middle way. And thereby, you could avoid all the problems of the two extremes. Just kind of stand there very cool and non-expressive. Letting things just kind of roll on by. Anyway, I actually would like to encourage all of us to have more of these encounters with celestial sensation, with celestial sensations.

[24:27]

and ecstatic, pleasant experience of our life. Much more of that. I don't think we're really there. There's enough of that in any of us. We get kind of bogged down in our worries, in our habits, and so on. And I'd like to recommend that we endeavor to learn how to do that not by going to Norway or Florence, but by turning our focus onto our own breathing, our own sensations, our own feelings, our own thoughts, all that's right at hand, beginning to view our own lives like we might view a great work of In fact, I think these encounters with our everyday life are like vitamins that we need in order to have a spiritual well-being, a healthy state of mind.

[25:33]

I think there's so much we need to learn from our passion, from our dramas, and from our occasional risks at falling down flat on our faces. There's a little boy who lives next door to me. Same as Miro, who's just learning how to walk. And he falls a lot. But he's learning. It's going to take him a while. And then he'll learn how to talk. So, I mean, the Stendhal syndrome has never proven to be fatal. And I think the real trick is how to engage in these ecstatic states without getting caught in them, without lingering after the party is over, the parade has passed. We need to learn how to keep on walking once we've ingested just the right amount of intoxication.

[26:37]

Not too much, not too little. In other words, how to get in and out of heaven with your dignity and your moral values still intact. So I think the first skill that we need to cultivate is this absorption and contemplation of sublime beauty. And the second skill is how not to get caught there. These two go hand in hand. Now, this is study of the middle way. People often say to me, how do I enjoy my life? I'm so busy. I never have any time. And I hear that a lot. You may think that yourself. And so I want to share one of my favorite methods for enjoying my life. And you're welcome to try it if you like. Because there is awesome beauty surrounding us in each and every moment. So the trick is you have to stop what you're doing and gaze about you at all of the little details, you know, of color and shape.

[27:48]

It's the kind of oh my God of having fingers over a piece of paper or the color yellow, the smell of bread, the sound of a car. Wow. Your feelings, your thoughts. There's no end to it. It's all a big wow. As soon as you look at it, there it is. So this method of cultivating insight through meditation on objects of awareness is called vipassana in Buddhism, insight meditation, which is also very akin to mindfulness meditation, which I'm sure you've all heard of, meaning moment-to-moment awareness of present events, right here and right now. Can you feel your body on these chairs, your feet?

[28:52]

on the floor, your glasses on your nose, whatever you've got going there. Can you feel it? Do you know it? Are you here? And vipassana also is connected with a word in Sanskrit called pratyaksha, meaning right before your eyes. Right before your eyes. I think that's useful. way to think of it. What is right before your eyes, right before your ears, your nose, your tongue? So once you begin to get the hang of focusing your attention on objects that are right before your eyes, then it's supremely beneficial to cultivate an awareness of these objects which is curious, open, and accepting. kind of non-judgmental observation of the world.

[29:56]

This is the harder part. It's one thing to look, but it's another thing not to have an opinion of what you're seeing. Not so easy. So this aspect of meditation I'm calling shamatha, tranquility. Calming the mind, discerning the real. Calm your mind, and now look at the world. It's a different world. Have you ever been in your car and somebody starts tailgating you? I get really mad. And I have to kind of work it to calm down. It takes me a while. But that's the work. It's right there in the arising of stress and anxiety and anger. Ferrari, I think it was, one of those really low, you know, big, noisy cars, passed me on Highway 1 one evening and I had my daughter in the car and it sounded like, I thought an airplane had landed behind me.

[31:16]

It was really loud. And then it was like, you know, went around. And I was like, I won't say the words I said, but I was really like, how dare, what is he doing? And my daughter said, how do you know it's a man? Okay, okay, I don't know. I made an assumption. Anyway. Now, the one problem with this method of stopping what you're doing is that you can very well lose your train of thought. And, you know, for me, that's not so bad because my trains of thinking are not very long. But... For some of you, you kind of make a living, I would think, by staying on focus. So I use Post-its, and I'll make a note of what I was doing, or what I was thinking, or what I need to be doing while I take these breaks. So just, you might want to add that to the method. So along with these exercises that we can do in our day, throughout our day, to help us feel more joy, more happiness, more pleasure,

[32:28]

in what our lives are made of. I think the real experience of sublime beauty happens when we're able to truly focus in a concentrated way on the beauty of our very own minds and their creations. The mind is an amazement, imagination. We are creatures of imagination. The whole world is our imagination. We're making it all up and then we walk through it like it's there. Like someone put it there just for us. We put it there. What we like, what we don't like, what we look at, what we value, what we respect. The word Buddha means to be awake and I think this might be what he's talking about, to be awake to his own mind and the creations of his mind, and to love oneself as inclusive of the entire universe.

[33:39]

Me, me. Biggest possibility there is. In an interview on YouTube with Kay Ryan, whose wonderful poem I read at the beginning of my talk, She says some wonderful things about the kind of deep pleasure and deep knowing that comes from absorption in the creative process itself. Her own mind. So I'd like to read a little bit of that interview. To know something briefly, as one does in a poem, is to know something one has never known before. I write for pleasure, not necessarily fun pleasure, but the pleasure of the very most compelling gain possible. which is with your mind. It's exciting to write, extremely engaging, always a surprise, leading to a deep pleasure, a complex pleasure, and to a great satisfaction that follows. Poetry allows me to find my way to the most interesting part of my mind, something in the very nature of manipulating language as actively as one can.

[34:51]

gets the writer to a knowledge that is otherwise unavailable. And yet I can't hold on to it. I have to go back to the poems themselves in order to see that crud line, such as the one left after a flood, which is what my poems really are. Because the mind sinks back to its quotidian self, I can only visit there too. So finally, there's this skill that we need to learn in order to feel safe as we explore, you know, the ecstatic spaces that can take place within our mind's encounter with this beautiful world. And the Buddha actually gave us a technique for moving along, for not getting stuck, that I'd like to share with you this morning. And he... recites this refrain throughout the passages that describe the events leading up to his own enlightenment.

[35:53]

And so I'm going to tell you the refrain so you can see it in the verses, two verses I'm going to read. The refrain is, I allow no such pleasant feeling that arises in me to gain power over my mind. That's all. That's his phrase. So here's the very first step of his journey to enlightenment. Now when I had eaten solid food and regained my strength, quite secluded from sensual desire, from unwholesome states, I entered upon and abode in the first meditation, accompanied by thinking and exploring, with happiness and pleasure born of seclusion. But I allowed no such pleasant feeling that arose in me to gain power over my mind. And he continues throughout the rest of the narrative through several other knowledges that he acquires through his meditation. And up to this final verse. When my heart was liberated, there came the knowledge, it is liberated.

[36:59]

I had direct knowledge. Birth is exhausted. The holy life has been lived out. What was to be done is done. There is no more of this to come. This was the third message. true knowledge attained by me in the third watch of the night. Ignorance was banished and true knowledge arose. Darkness was banished and light arose, as happens in one who is diligent, ardent, and self-controlled. But I allowed no such pleasure as arose in me to gain power over my mind. Now he wasn't even going to get caught by enlightenment. He just kept walking, you know, like the front and back foot. Gain and loss. Left foot, right foot. So you might want to consider bringing such a refrain to mind yourselves as you walk around in this beautiful world today and every day, letting no such pleasure that arises in you gain power over your mind.

[38:09]

So I want to close with a final verse by another great lady poet, Emily Dickinson. This is the hour of lead. If outlived, remembered as a freezing person recollects the snow. First chill, then stupor, then the letting go. Hallelujah. Thank you for listening to this podcast offered by the San Francisco Zen Center. Our programs are made possible by the donations we receive. Please help us to continue to realize and actualize the practice of giving by offering your financial support. For more information, visit sfcc.org and click Giving. May we fully enjoy the Dharma.

[39:01]

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