Good morning. to turn through a smaller angle so I'm happy with that arrangement it occurred to me but as I was saying you know move your cushions and I was thinking well that is an inconvenience and I was thinking then maybe most things in Zen are an inconvenience So yesterday I was talking about entering Shashi.

[01:13]

One of the significant challenges, and sometimes a subtle challenge for us, is that we tend to approach practice and do practice the way we do the rest of our life. our tendency is to push hard and try to achieve the goal or whether our tendency is to hang back and procrastinate or whether our test tendency is to look for others to tell us what to do or be determinedly self-reliant the challenge for us is to not simply bring our usual doing practice and then because then it draws us it draws it back into the karma of our life rather than stepping into the Dharma of our life or the Dharma of all life and I was trying to present a notion of Zazen

[02:37]

As a koan. Given my own background from Theravadan Buddhism where sati, mindfulness, was a prominent, maybe dominant notion. Awareness. Whatever it is, however it is, be aware. In the Zen school, the notion of koan. However, wherever, whatever, uh meet it with beginner's mind what's happening now what's the teaching what's the engagement that's awakening in contrast to the engagement that draws us back into the usual patterns of our karmic being And how do we do that each time we sit down to do zazen?

[03:42]

And how do we do that in the midst of zazen? I gave the notion of going off, jumping off the deep end of the swimming pool. And then just this morning I remembered my brother teaching me how to swim. My brother was about six years older. and a good swimmer for the time I was seven or eight. So his way of teaching me to swim was throw me off the deep end and yell at me, kick your legs, move your arms. And then I think just before I went down for the third time, he dragged me out. It didn't work. And then I was thinking, then we went on, and he became a champion swimmer, and I did athletics.

[04:46]

I stayed on dry land. But as I mentioned, under the Chusot's terrible influence, I've been looking at these books by Jury, the finder of Tendai Buddhism. And also reflecting that this was Dogen's first school of Buddhism. He studied this. It said that he had the equivalent of a PhD in Tendai Buddhism by the time he was 19 or 20. It's extraordinarily thorough. Here's the adjustments you make for meditation. Adjusting food, adjusting sleep, adjusting the body, the breath, the mind.

[05:51]

Adjustments for entering meditation. Adjustments for the body while entering meditation. Important physical considerations. Sitting down, arranging the feet, arranging clothing, arranging the hands, consolidating the posture. lining up the head neck sitting up straight preparing the breath expelling the turbid breath and healing the pure breath lips tongue eyes spine types of breathing windy breathing uneven breathing ordinary breathing subtle breathing effects of each type of breath adjustment techniques adjusting the mind while entering meditation. Disordered thinking, sinking thinking, floating thinking, urgency, laxity. This balance between

[07:07]

particulars the details very soon after I started meditation I started reading this kind of stuff and I started doing hatha yoga you over the period of decades I've practiced various breathing techniques and physical techniques and feel I have a lot to learn still from those things. And then also I would say Zazen teaches on its own terms. Sometimes Sometimes what you've so-called learned gets in the way.

[08:20]

And then sometimes it's an enormous help. But the combination of the two, I think the heritage of our school, and I would say the Zen school in general, is that we hold them both. We come at zazen in a particular way. And then we enter the koan of direct experiencing. The fascicle I mentioned yesterday of Dogen, Hotsu Budai Shin, a rising Buddha mind, or a rising way mind. the mind of the way. He actually, he starts off by saying there's three minds.

[09:22]

Citta, Hidayah, and Virtha. And then amazingly he says, citta, usually considered, and it seems to be in the fascicle, he says how he's considering it, discriminating, observing mind. What we might call our more usual functioning. And he says, this mind stimulates the entry into Buddha mind. But a decade or so ago, I had the good fortune to have a doku-san with Harada Tangan Roshi, who has since deceased, but a very venerable Japanese Zen teacher.

[10:24]

It's said that in his first joshin, when he was 17 or 18, he had Kensho, and then went on and practiced for another. 60 years, 60, 70 years. So for reasons I can't remember, I decided to bring up this quote from Dogen in Dogasan with him. And he gave me an utterly dismissive look. It was marvelous. As if to say, are you really that stupid? Is that the best you've got? As if to say, how could awakening be contained simply, be expressed, be enacted by just the process of usual mind?

[11:38]

Yet, in that fascicle, Dogen says that. And then what he says is the bodhisattva vow. The citta, right there, can bring forth the intention to awaken with everyone. And that this is an extraordinary quality of being. And I do think, you know, that part of practicing as a group, and I even think sitting close to each other carries some of the flavor of this. It helps break down the insularity, the separation. We literally feel, practice seeing, Like that book, The General Theory of Love, the author puts forth the hypothesis that our limbic system, we sense each other.

[13:02]

When we sense each other in our sitting, in our chanting, we awaken together. And then from there, the party just increases until everybody's included. Then this morning I'd like to talk a little bit about those other two minds. Radaya. Radaya means heart. As I explored it, you know, the Sanskrit word and in different references to it, often when I discovered when Dogen's talking about, you know, rocks, tiles, pebbles, grasses, he's referring to this mind because that's one of the classic ways

[14:20]

enumerated the this mind of being that we as humans share with other forms of being so in an inhuman consciousness life force you know when we sit we feel We experience, we act out the urgencies of our psychological makeup. We worry about whatever we worry about. We remember whatever we remember. We anticipate. But there's a way in which that process, what makes that process so attractive? Why are we inclined to look around assessing what we like and don't like?

[15:32]

Not that we do it as a deliberate effort, a deliberate intention, just this life force. And in the process of our sitting, you know, in the process of working with the breath. The extraordinary thing about working with the breath, and this notion carries through, you know, from the early suttas, Anapanasati, the whole way through Juryi and the different techniques that have come up in Zen of working with the breath, and yoga, as far as I can tell. one of the remarkable features of the breath is it carries the disposition.

[16:36]

When the mind is agitated it's reflected in the breath. When the body is tight it's reflected in the breath. When the body loosens and the mind softens it's reflected in the breath. In the early suttas it says there are 40 different meditations on breath that can all call forth presence. And in Jerry's formulations. he formulates four categories of breath actually four categories in which the breath is a little off-kilter but the mind of Colin attends to the breath as it is

[17:50]

What do we study when we sit down in zazen? We study what's arising now. We don't push it aside in the service of what should be arising or what could be arising. Or in the service of stopping what we don't want. The beginner's mind of kohan is... What's happening now? And in this mind, in this attitude, renunciation, discipline, inclusion, they are called forth. Not as some separate formulation, but they become intrinsic in the engagement of the moment.

[18:57]

And in the Soto school, this, what's happening now, this opening with beginner's mind, is held up. And then as far as I can tell, there's some range of notions as to whether there's particular involvement or decided non-particular involvement. Like Shohaku Kumara saying in response to the question, how do you relate to the breath? Or how do you follow the breath? Don't. To anyone who cares to listen, I offer a lot of details about following the breath.

[20:10]

I find different techniques very helpful. And techniques can also be a stumbling block. But I would say this. When the technique is engaged, with beginner's mind. This helps us rather than let the technique be an end in itself. Okay, you've got to get this technique right if you want to progress. You've got to manufacture the expected outcome. That can become a distraction. And when the technique makes evident what's happening, when the technique makes evident how the intimacy of the moment is being thwarted by some condition, that arising

[21:34]

observation becomes a card what is it the practice with this and this is the natural state afraid a mind note that this life force engages existence We hear a sign and we give it a name. And if we don't know what name to give it, usually it draws us to a halt in the moment. Now usually then our inquiry is finished because now we know what it is. Where in reality all we've done is made. a label that we've substituted for experience.

[22:39]

So I would say this, that when you sit, know what it is you're doing in the process of aligning with sitting. Know what it is doing in your body how you find uprightness what are those details and notice as you settle into sitting your body becomes more the details of your body become more evident so the the connectedness the intimacy of physical being can become more evident and I would imagine that everyone in this room experiences that as they settle into sitting it's not one leg what discrete from another leg the they intertwine

[24:03]

and stop being separate. It's not a body held together by a collection of ideas. It becomes more of a sense field, a variety of experiences. So we bring the idea of sitting, we bring the idea of body, the ideas of posture, and they open into experience. This is how we engage a technique. It sets the stage, it opens the door. can incline our attention in a particular way.

[25:07]

And as it inclines our attention, that facilitates a certain kind of experience. It's an instructive thing to do when you're sitting and you find yourself saying, My left shoulder blade hurts. There's a pain underneath the bottom of my left shoulder blade. Forget the words. Go to the sensation and just experience the sensation. Usually, karmic mind steps in. My left shoulder blade is hurting. What am I going to do to get rid of it? I'm gonna try this strategy. And then often, if it's very painful and it's a very long sitting, there's some kind of distress.

[26:20]

And Jury talks about the mind sinking. You know? Try not to let the mind... sink. I know sinking. See, I was listening. So try not to let the mind sink. But even here, you know, there's a way in which the mind is held up by a kind of agitation. I've got to get this right.

[27:30]

I've got to stop this pain. Whatever it is you've got to do, you've got to keep it together and make it happen. And as we release that, there is a softening of the mind. But that can sink. And the challenge for us is to... Attention. Keeping attention brightens the mind. It keeps it in the here and now. It keeps an alertness. Sometimes in the meditation text, it makes them sequential. First you soften, first you release, then you stimulate the attention. in anapanasati this is there in the Zen school we could say this inquiry what's happening now and the attitude what's happening now helps open the mind

[28:59]

this marvelous attitude of the Mahayana endless Dharma gates no fixed I'd come it's this attitude and how will we realize how will we taste this endless ways to awaken it, meet the moment that arises. So with the breath, we attend to the flow. And I would say, and I have been taught traditionally as best we can in the abdomen. best we can when you get used to it it's a accessible point of contact and when you're not used to it it can be difficult it's easily swept away by thinking mind in that regard I would suggest

[30:31]

extending the exhale. And in the context of Hridaya, you're working with your being. You're not trying to coerce your body and mind into a certain result, into a certain behavior. It's more that we're trying to offer body and mind release. When the body releases, the breath deepens. If you try to coerce your body, this process doesn't come about. The original mind and body of being This is what we're trying to illuminate.

[31:38]

This is what we're trying to reveal. So even in a deliberate technique like extending the exhale, it's like reminding ourselves of something we know. And similarly with all the aspects of awareness, reminding ourselves of something we know. We know in our core being. We know in Hrdaya. We know in the heart of our being. You may have a particular way of talking about it. feeling it, relating to it, so be it.

[32:39]

I would say the intimate contact that we have when we meditate is very helpful. Something in your own experiencing you've learned helps you connect, open, release and this learning this experiencing and learning is Vridaya Vridya mind it's it's a learning that arises from experience and this is the third consciousness We open and something is experienced, something is realized, something acknowledged.

[33:53]

We learn directly the intimate workings of being. We learn directly the intimate workings of awakening, of release. And sometimes it's an impressive learning. Sometimes you have a moment where the mind opens, where there's a palpable, strong sense of presence, where each arising has an authority, an illumination. And sometimes it's just a detail. You notice how you were suddenly clenching your jaw. And as you clenched your jaw, there was like a clenching in the mind.

[34:59]

And they both feel like something extra. It's not necessary to clench. And we maybe in that moment we release. Maybe in that moment we just taste the karmic pattern of clenching. And we taste something about patience for the human condition. So the beginner's mind, the mind of Kaan, the mind of Inkyore, the mind of what's happening now. With humility, it just meets what arises.

[36:17]

In the early sutras, it says this attitude has the marvelous quality of balance. As we meet what arises just as itself, it inclines it towards balance. It inclines it towards equanimity. pines it towards acceptance. And even though our practice asks us to jump off the deep end, we can carry this mind with us.

[37:30]

This mind of what's happening now. It draws those aspects of mind that we tend to dissociate, that we tend to suppress, that we tend to get caught up in an unconscious way. It draws them into now. And when they're now, they can become a Dharma flower. Or maybe it's sometimes more like a Dharma thorn. Of course, we prefer the Dharma flower. As Dogen said, flowers fall and weeds grow.

[38:37]

So holding this mind and recognizing that what this mind meets is the karmic workings of our life, singularly and collectively. And meeting the karmic mind reveals the Dharma. Vrita, the learning of experience, can only happen when there's something manifest, manufactured to be experienced. we start to settling this machine and the clamor of our car make preoccupations starts to loosen this state of appreciation the state of wonder

[40:01]

as Mary Oliver would put it, would it be better to sit in silence, to think everything, to feel everything, to say nothing? This is the way of the orange gourd. This is the habit of the rock and the river, over which the water pours all day in might. The nature of man... and woman is not the nature of silence. Words are the thunders of the mind. Words are the refinements of the flesh. Words are the responses to the thousand curvaceous moments. We just manage it, sweet and electric. Words flow from the brain and out the gate of the mouth. We make books of them. out of hesitations and grammar.

[41:09]

We're slow and choosy. This is the world. I often think how graphic it is that the kitchen crew get up off and make our lunch we benefit from their generosity this sense that pradaya the life force cannot be denied You might not like how you're coming forth.

[42:14]

It might puzzle you. It might annoy you. You might be deeply proud of yourself as to how you're coming forth, congratulating yourself for your wonderfulness. But either way, there's something extraordinary happening. this life force of human being. This is the spirit of the koan of Zazen, of Shikantaza. What am I going to come up with next? What thought or feeling are going to pass through my being?

[43:18]

Is my body going to melt into a flow of intimate energy? Or is it going to tighten into a bag of bones that are rubbing and banging in a painful way? Can the response be aware? Can that be a conscious response? Can it be seen for what it is rather than just stir up the dust of what I want and what I don't want and what I like and what I'm afraid of? This kind of attitude.

[44:27]

And the interesting thing, when we bring forth this attitude, we find that all the preliminary teachings, all the admonitions, they're included. we're not off in a distant field from jury this attitude in its involvement will reveal the kindness of renunciation it will reveal the wisdom of discipline it will reveal the of all inclusion, of all beings in the process of awakening. And we enter this Dharma gate not by filling ourselves with all the answers.

[45:45]

We enter this Dharma gate with this intention. What's happening now? And we learn the yoga of it, how it makes contact with body, how it makes contact with the array of human emotions, how it makes contact in each of the physical situations we pass through each day in Sashin, each of the interactions. the beating heart of our practice. So the heart consciousness, the experience in consciousness, and citta.

[46:54]

And even with our discriminating mind, it can get us into so much trouble. We can hold forth that noble aspiration. May this foolish effort that I make may it be for the benefit of everyone. 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 sfcc.org and click giving.

[47:47]

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