This podcast is offered by the San Francisco Zen Center on the web at www.sfzz.org. Our public programs are made possible by donations from people like you. Good morning. I'm going to talk about what I think of as the internal involvement in Shingi. In some ways there's the do's and don'ts that we all agree to comply with and engage wholeheartedly. And then there's what goes on for us while we're doing that.

[01:01]

You know, sitting in a circle last night, I was struck, you know, when you read the early suttas, and somewhat still in the Theravadan tradition you see this, the role of sangha, Even though there is hierarchy, you know, the teacher is the teacher, sangha and the collective body and being and purposefulness of sangha is held as a very significant and important contribution to what happens. In the certified intuition, when someone comes to be ordained, they're ordained into sangha. In some ways, you know, there's a difference. In the Zen tradition, they get ordained by a person, and the Sangha bears witness. In the Thuravadin tradition, you actually have to have a certain size of Sangha to engage this person, or the ordination isn't valid.

[02:18]

So as we sat there in the circle, I was thinking, How wonderful as California Zen meets Japanese Zen and we sit in a circle and bring in community and that quality of that we're all in this together. Being in practice paired together, each one of us, regardless of our rank, regardless of our role, is obliged to follow the shingi. And then, of course, in the midst of that, there's also something extraordinarily tender that goes on. I remember several years ago, there was someone who was a Dohan, and he was really struggling with being a Dohan, as most people do.

[03:25]

It's very interesting, you know. Almost everybody struggles with being a dawn, and then they go away during interim, and then they come back, and the email says, oh, well, before we train the new dawn, get the new dawn's trained, could you fill in as kokyo? And then, they're just terrific at it. That peculiar part of our... human workings, you know. When we're earnestly and dedicatedly and committedly trying to do our best, it's almost like we're also getting in our own way. Then you go away and forget it and do something entirely different, then you come back. And it's in your body. What a surprise. Sure, no problem. But in that learning process, For most people, it's like exposing every part of you to the sangha.

[04:39]

If you miss a bell, hit it too loud, hit it too soft, everybody gets it. Everybody knows. If your cochlea voice is thin and crackly, the assembly hears it. And in some way, how terrific, how terrific that there is the support to be exactly where you are, exactly who you are, and to make your complete effort. So this person was in the throes of that wonderful activity, and

[05:40]

And with few exceptions, they were actually a very good kokyo, but pretty much everything else left something to be still discovered. And then one day, and then one day in the middle of the practice period, they made an announcement at work meeting. And they said, I know I'm not a very good doer. I get it. I'm aware of my mistakes and that I just don't seem to have what it takes to be proficient. I want you to know I'm doing my best. And even though the product is not so good, that I will continue to do my best.

[06:45]

And they said in such a heartfelt way that even now I kind of feel something. The tenderness I think we all felt when we heard this person say it. That in that moment he was supporting all of our practice. He was demonstrating in a totally open and committed way what practice is about. Reminding us all, yes, We create all these do's and don'ts, and then we can infer within them some success or lack of success, what it is to do them right, what it is to get them wrong.

[07:51]

And that has its place, but it's not the fundamental point. The fundamental point is wholehearted engagement. fundamental point is, though only a mosquito biting on an iron bowl, I will take my dharma seat. Though my mistakes fill heaven and earth, I will continue. And how That sentiment, that resolve, that vow is contagious. We feel it. We feel it from each other.

[08:55]

We watch each other often in small ways. You just watch how someone places a cup. takes the time to clear someone else's dishes. And they're sitting in this circle. We're holding that collective intimacy, that way in which each one of us practices for the whole sangha, and the whole sangha benefits from our practice. to refer back to being a dawn.

[10:00]

In the process, a whole variety of experiences and responses come up for us. We do have a fixed notion as to what it is to do it right and what it is to do it wrong. And then of course we have to deal with the Eno, who of course is doing their best to be skillful, encouraging, patient, instructive. But still, most of us will give them the gift of all the transferences we have around authority figures. We'll project onto the Purino things they can't even imagine.

[11:13]

And we'll hold within our own self-image all sorts of notions. And then we'll go away during interim, breathe a sigh of relief, do something entirely different, and come back and discover. Sometimes to our own amazement. I can do this. Yeah. It brings up such wonderful questions. Is it possible for us to be conscious of this process as we're in the midst of it? Are we inevitably foolish? Inevitably caught up in the intrigues that we co-create.

[12:21]

We project onto the eno and that stimulates the eno to behave a certain way. in our own psychology, it confirms the accuracy of our projection. Ah, just as I thought. He really doesn't like me. Can I be conscious of all that? I would say yes and no. All of it, can we be conscious of all of it? In certain moments, yeah. I would also say then there's other moments where we're just fooled by it. And the marvelous thing about the structure of the Shingi is that it holds us.

[13:45]

The bell is not sounding a certain way because it doesn't like you, because it doesn't want to be your friend. It's just the way the bell signs when you hold the striker like that, strike it on that place with that amount of force. Stop being outside the bathhouse is not meant to prevent you from having the shower you want to take in the 10 minutes before the dental starts it wasn't put there to cause you a problem and the role of inner Shingi in the midst of being human, in the midst of being the conditioned person that we are, in the midst of taking on the attributes of the role we've been asked to take on, to see what comes up, to feel it, to experience it, and to let it

[15:21]

And in part of our tradition part of the shingi is that we renew our vow We renew our vow each morning before we chant the suttas. We renew our vow each evening before we go to bed. That within this extraordinarily situation called Zen training, within this body and mind and heart with its extraordinary complexities, there can be a resolve to just keep practicing with it as it arises.

[16:39]

And as some of you who've had the misfortune to practice with me before know that I will say things like, experience the experience you're experiencing. Experience the experience you're experiencing. And how mysteriously difficult that is. this resolve, this beautiful human capacity to let something in us touch its sincerity. To touch it, to feel it, to taste it.

[17:54]

This is the heart, the tandem, the skin, bone, flesh, and marrow of our practice. So as we start on this three-month journey together, to reflect on that resolve, to reflect on the person you are, the role you're undertaking now. Maybe already you have some attitudes, expectations,

[19:05]

projections, some excitement or some dread. And this funny proposition, give yourself completely to it. How the heck do you give yourself completely to being bathroom attended. I don't know. I've never been bathroom attended. But I hope those who are will discover it. I hope they will discover how the sun moves through the bathhouse as it goes from east to west, as it rises as the seasons progress.

[20:07]

Each thing has its own intimacies. In meeting them, letting them draw us in, letting them become moment. I have a good friend and mentor, Brother David Stendlerust, and his primary teaching is gratitude. In my own cynical way, I've thought, yeah, nice work if you can get it. But a whole lot more than gratitude goes on for me. And as far as I can tell, for most other people too.

[21:15]

And then in the fall, I was in India, and I was reading the teachings of a guru, who's the former teacher of Shindo Gayatri, who will be here someday soon. She's had problems with her passport. And guess what? There he was, saying the same thing. Appreciation and gratitude. think koan, isn't it? To think, hmm, I'm more of an expert on discontent, imperfections.

[22:24]

What is this teaching of gratitude or appreciation? I suspect it's not noticing, not allowing the moments of tenderness, the moments of connection, whether it's our self and the steam rising off the water in the hot tub. or whether it's the feeling of deep affection when someone like that dawn opens their heart and unashamedly accepts who they are and offers it up to everyone.

[23:39]

In a way, this is an ingredient of awareness that can be available to us. We can think of awareness as a dutiful activity where we're doing the right thing. has its place. But we can also think of awareness as an act of appreciation. To taste the hot cereal. To notice of those clumps of berries so sort of incongruously hanging there on that bush.

[24:59]

And to turn it inwards too. How amazing that each one of us, of all the things we could be doing other than being here, this is where we are. This is something in us has committed to this as the most important thing. So this quality of stepping beyond right and wrong, stepping beyond success and failure, turning towards engaging with the benevolence.

[26:14]

these aspects of inner Shingi support our resolve, not to simply become sort of thin and dutiful, but they help to give it an inclination towards a spaciousness and a patience. and I would say a resilience. Lots of things are going to come up for you in the course of this practice period. And in a way, the challenge is formidable. It's not simply

[27:20]

to just get through it. Of course, that's certainly preferable to not getting through it. But in the process, to be aware when you're aware. to be aware and to let the moment to your rising be engaged as a teaching to let it spark an investigation what's happening now are you in mind is so easily and readily fooled by what should be happening.

[28:23]

Or, this is not so interesting, I'm gonna think about that. To stay in the territory of now. And let that open and include. the patience, the acceptance, the resilience. And I would add an appreciative benevolence. We have crafted together our own psychological makeup. together with all the things that influenced us and shaped us in our development. In pediatric psychology, there's a phrase called good enough.

[29:42]

The notion is that the parents just need to be good enough. In its own way, that's ideal. If the parents were perfect, the children wouldn't have to develop the capacity to meet the imperfections of life, the disappointments, the challenges. Maybe we can think of our own awareness to be good enough. If you were the perfect dawn, Never made a single mistake. First time that Eno showed you something, you did it perfectly. Would you have the teaching that that person had? Would you have the encouragement to have such patience, to let go of accomplishment?

[31:02]

So through our inner Shingi, We set up, hopefully, we set up an internal environment. The external environment of Shingi is that which is conducive to practice. That's what these details of the structure is about. And to create the internal correlate. which is conducive to practice to attend to yourself in a way that sustains your resolve to attend to your engagement in a way that offers encouragement

[32:19]

rather than discouragement. It offers a steadiness of commitment rather than getting spaced out or falling into a kind of resentful disenchantment. And of course, included in that is when you do fall into being spaced out or disenchanted, that you open to that too. You experience that experience. So this kind of result. Yogan Zinji said, nobody can force it on you in Vendava.

[33:28]

Nobody can force it on you, and you can't force it on yourself. One of the steps of the Eightfold Path is right speech. And we can think of right speech not only as how we speak to others, but we can also think of right speech as how we speak to ourself. Can you speak to yourself skillfully? Can you attend to the thoughts and feelings and judgments you have about yourself. If you look at it psychologically, when we create, when we live within a hostile environment, when we create within ourselves a hostile environment, our defensiveness is stimulated.

[34:45]

How wonderful that the environment was such that that person could stand up and make that heartfelt disclosure at work meeting about their inadequacies or what they perceived as their inadequacies as a dog. May we be that for each other. And may we be that for ourselves. May we be able to distinguish between a generous benevolence towards our own being and avoidance, denial, or some other mechanism for not meeting what's arising. Psychologically, sometimes when there's trust, something in us opens like a surprise.

[36:10]

There's some way we're holding back that we didn't even know we were holding back. And in some ways this is the great gift of the forms. You give yourself to the forms of the Zendo and you learn something about giving yourself to the inner world too. Of bringing that same full attention to what you're feeling. Here's the poem. We look with uncertainty beyond the old choices for clear-cut answers to a softer, more permeable aliveness which in every moment is at the brink of death.

[37:15]

For something new is being born in us if we let it. We stand at a new doorway awaiting that which comes. Daring to be human creatures. Vulnerable to the beauty of existence. Learning to love. Anne Hildman. And how would you say it? What words? What images? What feelings? the inner alchemy of resolve. And so when we go through our formal avowals, I now fully avow, when we take refuge,

[38:31]

formal expression resonate with what's intimate in your heart? Can it be a nourishment? Can it be an encouragement? Can it be a reminder? Oh yeah. It cultivates within us The trust. Daring to be human creatures. And in the great mystery of practice, it cultivates within us realization of Buddha nature. activates within us this appreciation that turns towards the moment and opens like a flower to the sun.

[39:53]

No one can force it on you, and you can't force it on yourself. Ah, the beauty, the fragrance. So that's the words I give it. I would ask you, what words do you give it? Or images. or feelings. And let them be your companion. Let them be your guide. Let them be your teacher. We look with uncertainty beyond the old choices for clear-cut answers.

[41:07]

to a softer, more permeable aliveness, which is every moment, is at the brink of death. For something new is being born in us, if we will but let it. We stand at a new doorway, awaiting that which comes, daring to be human creatures, vulnerable to the beauty of existence. learning to love 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, visit SSCC.org and click giving.

[42:15]

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