I'd like to take a moment to introduce our speaker tonight. Many of you don't know, Sala Steinbach. She's been sitting for many years. Since she's lived at Muir Beach, she's been sitting at Green Galsh Farm, where she was. Well, it's nice to look out and see that I have friends here. I am happy to see so many of my friends here tonight.

[01:00]

And to my friends and to my new friends, I want to say, I'm sorry, I don't feel well. So. So I want to invite you to sit in Zazen posture and you can always do Zazen. What I had. wanted to talk to you about tonight with enthusiasm was sitting zazen. So I will still do that, but without quite as much enthusiasm. And I'll do the best I can. But anyway, I just want to tell you about something. At my Shuso ceremony, one of my friends, I couldn't believe this, asked me, said, Sala, you tell me that often that sitting is not your practice.

[02:12]

What are you doing here? And I couldn't believe that she would say that. I mean, it was just like, you know, it was so private. And I would say it, you know, after we'd been sitting, you know, sesheen or something. You know, I was just really kind of through with sitting for that moment. But I realized that it's not true that sitting is not my practice. Sitting is my practice. It's the practice that I love. It's the practice that keeps me coming back, even when I say I don't want to come back. Um, you know, I live in green. I mean, I don't live at Green Gulch. I live at home and I'm, oh, 15 minutes away from Green Gulch. Really? It's five. But after getting out of the car and stuff and, you know, so to get up at home at four o'clock in the morning and, you know, go over to the Zendo, obviously that means I like sitting because otherwise I'd have to be crazy.

[03:18]

I mean, what other reason would I have for getting up and going over and sitting? So I wanted to read this at the beginning and the end. I wanted to write a poem that you would understand. For what good is it to me if you can't understand it? But you have got to try hard. So I that's, by the way. William, Williams? William C. Williams. William Carlos. And when I saw William C., I was like, who is that? Okay, thank you. It is William Carlos. said this.

[04:57]

Life is the interplay between our sensuous body and the world. Life is the interplay between our sensuous body and the world. I love the acknowledgement of the sensuous body. When I heard him say that, I thought, oh, right, that's who I am. And I don't want an image of something other than that, at least for me. This is a sensuous body. These are all sensuous bodies in front of me. And this interplay is a dance.

[06:13]

Upon this dance, we tell stories. We imagine that there is a relationship between ourselves and the world. We tell them about the dance. Between us, we are afraid of the dance and of other humans, mountains, the ocean, the earth. We want to get a hold of it as a coping mechanism in hopes that we can get a hold of it to assuage our fears. We cope by making up stories. And these stories are our karma. Then we forget that we made up the story because we got scared.

[07:22]

We forget that we made up the stories because we got scared. We are harmed, we are still afraid, which leads to more harm by making up more stories about our relationships. which we believe. We believe these stories. Even good stories like you are my friend. Zazen is about studying the stories. You know, I... You know, I get, I always, like, I have this feeling right now that I've only learned this recently. Now, I've been sitting, you know, for years, so obviously I must have heard that before.

[08:23]

But I guess I especially want to say this to people who are new at sitting, that that is what we're doing when we sit zazen. We study our stories. If we pay attention to our stories, there's the chance that we cannot get caught by them. Letting go of stories is happiness. And when we let go, the whole world transforms positively. Understanding stories and letting them go transforms I was doing a very brief workshop this morning at UCSF in the chaplaincy program and talking about diversity.

[09:35]

And I wanted so much to say, you know, that these are just stories. that we tell each other, you know, that, and on the other hand, we need to pay attention to them because the stories cause harm. So you are white, I am black, she is rich, he is poor. These are just stories and stories that we use to divide ourselves as if we could be divided. The Buddha way is learning about the stories we are telling right now. I heard somebody's feelings on Saturday.

[11:11]

One day, somebody said that the fact that Buddha was a man of color was very important to her. And when she said that, I thought, oh, yeah, it's important to me, too. You know, I don't know if I would be here if Buddha was a European or a European-American. Maybe I would, but I don't think so. I don't, there's something about where he came from that is important to me. But Buddha never, I mean, he couldn't have considered himself a man of color. That concept would have been strange. I mean, he would have, I mean, what would it mean to even say that? It would have had no meaning in Buddha's time. So my second thought was, oh, and it's just a story. But when I said it was just a story, I heard her feeling. She thought I was in some way discounting her.

[12:13]

And I wasn't. I wish I could. I was thinking so fast. And I wish I could have gone back and said, no, that is important to me, too. And it's just a story. It's just a story we tell ourselves to make us less fearful. certainly to make her and me less fearful. We humans have to let go of the stories by leaping free and being enlightened by everything. to turn the light around so that we can see what we're up to.

[13:37]

We need to come back to our breath or to our present and let the stories go. I teach thoughts and instruction a lot, and I often hear people talk about being bored when they let those stories go. You know, and they ask, how can I stay present with boredom? You know, and if, you know, and I, no, not if I was about to ask something about you, but I know that when I get bored, it's hard to keep sitting. You know, I always wonder what the boredom is covering, but I get antsy, and so I usually don't try to investigate it. Sometimes, you know, basic anxiety comes out. But one of the things that I've noticed is that boredom often comes after practicing with something difficult.

[14:55]

So that's just something, you know, to be aware of. It makes me look back. when I realize that I'm bored to see what have I been working on? Ah, you know, maybe that old anxiety again. This practice that we're talking about of sitting zazen, sitting and letting our thoughts go, Freely, no holding on, with open hands, takes practice and practice and patience. If you are skillful at being in the present moment, the stimulus is there, bodhicitta arises.

[16:53]

The best way to take care of that is to pay attention to your intentions. Self-concern and believing the story of what's good or bad for you, if you pay attention to it, you can change it to concern for others. What are your intentions?

[18:48]

Is it to take out the recycling? To interrupt racism or homophobia? Turning the light so that we can see what our stories are what our intentions are, and let go of the stories. of our days and the ways that we are when we're not sitting and the way that most people are I don't know who told the story but it's like it's like climbing up into the clouds the higher into the clouds you climb unfortunately the harder you fall

[20:39]

Clouds are clouds, but they look one way and they cannot hold us. Fabrications and abstractions are like clouds. They do not exist in the way that we think they do. Sorry, I'm going so slowly.

[21:56]

I'm slightly nauseous, so I apologize. Each of us lives in a world created by our abstract concepts, and we assume that each of us sees the world in the same way.

[23:44]

We assume that we see society in the same way, that we understand money in the same way, We don't. We don't see these things the same way because they are not outside of ourselves.

[25:03]

And that's the most important part, that the way I see society, the way I see the clouds, the way I see each of you, That comes from me. How can I say that? That comes from me. It would only be true that I could see Blanche the way all of you see Blanche. If Blanche were independent of me, the way I see her, that she's independent of me. We sit so that we can see the stories for what they are.

[26:15]

We sit so that I can think about what's going to be for lunch at Green Gulch. And when I open my eyes, that what is there is the wall. an emotional reaction to some thought that comes up angry with my friend. And I can have a whole story about that. But when I look, there's only the wall. People sit to obtain enlightenment, as if enlightenment were something that was out there that they could get.

[28:01]

And what I understand the Bindawa to say is that enlightenment is the sitting, it is the letting go of thoughts right now. letting them go freely to pass on by. And that that isn't something that can last. That there isn't an enlightenment that comes and then that's it. We forever are just thus. That's it. When I read the Binduwa, I was shocked because I hadn't, even though I've heard that many times, I hadn't heard it so seriously.

[29:04]

That with the permission of that, of course, as soon as I get up from my cushion or even as I sit on my cushion, that thoughts will come. Thoughts come. That is what our minds do. They make thoughts just as our kidneys make urine. We don't have to do anything about it. That is what will happen. It's letting them go and letting them go and the slowing down to thus is what happens when we sit. In our ordinary life, we go on accepting concepts.

[30:09]

He is black, she is white. He is bad, she is good. But when we stop this, when we sit zazen and let go of the thoughts just to come back to here, Siddhas in, it is non-doing. And as we sit and as we practice, we gradually stop believing in our concepts. letting the stories go, not believing in our concepts.

[31:23]

This is the real self that you will see when you practice Zazen. This is the real self that we see when we practice Zazen. As long as we are human, the thoughts will come back. No matter how hard we practice, the thoughts will come back. Just sitting zazen, just sitting facing the wall.

[32:38]

The fantasies, the stories will slow down. And soon there's just the wall. Soon there's just being. you realize that your thoughts are just secretions of your mind doing what the mind does Yesterday when I was sitting Zazen, I started looking for myself.

[33:48]

And I seriously was looking for myself. And I got disturbed that I couldn't find myself. I thought, here I am, 62 years old, and I don't know myself. I was amazed. And so I sat with not being able to find myself. And then I had practice discussion with my teacher who. And she said, and I really went in very concerned that I hadn't been able to find myself. And she told me she was very proud of me. once again to know that even a self is not there. is so precious for us to be here, for us to hear the Dharma.

[35:27]

So I love when there are expressions like, Buddha's eyes is just letting go of thought. I love the idea of that precious delicacy. The precious, delicate Buddha's eyes are just letting go of thought. I'm going to stop because I can't sit here much longer. I wish I had a more intellectual way to say it, but what I loved about the Bindawa was the, once again, the invitation to just sit.

[36:51]

And I get, And I love the forms. I love practicing the forms. But remembering that this practice is about sitting. And yes, there are forms. And yes, there is incense. And yes, there's talking to teachers. But it is about just sitting. Really the simple practice of just sitting and letting our thoughts go. Coming back to sitting. Now. And thoughts come and coming back to now. I wanted to write a poem for you that you would understand. For what good is it to me if you can't understand it? But you gotta try hard.

[37:54]

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