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. Can you hear okay? Yeah? Jisha and myself, we got so engrossed in something we were talking about that we forgot the electorate. What intrigued us both and engrossed us both was the news that Tassahara is going to be evacuated.

[01:21]

Now, I'm not sure if that's a complete description of what's going to happen, but anyway, we got distracted by it. But I suspect whatever is going to happen, we'll take care of it. This morning at the work meeting, the abbot said in an announcement so we would know that a group of people are coming this afternoon. They're fundraising. I don't know if they're fundraising exclusively for Zen Center, but sacred places.

[02:26]

And at the time, my mind thought, will the sacred places influence us or do we influence and make a place sacred? My own notion is it's a bit of both. Or maybe a lot of both. And in a way, what I'd like to talk about this morning is the mandala of sacredness, to mixed terms. Usually a mandala is a drawing or a painting that conveys the teachings. But actually,

[03:35]

we can also take the same term and let it convey our agreed inclusion of our practice as we meet each other, as we engage each other, as we engage ourselves, and as we engage the world. It can all be thought of as engagement that creates sacredness. And then I thought I would talk about five faculties at teaching from early Buddhism. But before I jump into that, what also came to my mind was when my daughter, who's now in her 40s, was six months old.

[04:47]

I was playing peek-a-boo, you know. You cover your eyes, and then the infant doesn't know where you've gone. And then you take your hands down and say, peek-a-boo. And that's what I was playing with my six-month-old daughter. And she, at a certain point, after we'd done that many times, she reversed roles. She put her hands in front of her face and then took them down. And unable to walk or talk at that time, she just started laughing.

[05:51]

And I was both amused and kind of startled. At six months old, is that what we're capable of? We can see a moment and we can shift it. A couple of weeks ago, I was standing in the lobby and we were discussing something. And then, lo and behold, we had a different conclusion. Both of us had a different conclusion to what we were discussing. We had a different opinion about what happened.

[06:55]

And then I thought when that became apparent, I thought, well, I'm right. And that must make you wrong. And I thought, I could pursue that path and with righteous indignation confirm the rightness of my opinion or not. And I think maybe we learn this when we're six months old. And then as life becomes complicated and we learn how to talk and how to walk and how to think and have opinions, then it becomes something that challenges us

[08:08]

to see it in a wholesome way, to see it in a sacred way. So rather than get caught up in my righteousness and how I would quote the facts that would confirm my righteousness, I thought, well, what if I just look at this person's face and see if they look happy or how they look, you know? Do they look frustrated? Do they look offended? And that pause seemed to set in motion almost like an unspoken decision from both of us to just have a different kind of conversation.

[09:26]

And I thought, What does it take to do that? What does it take to not just follow your own opinion and to meet any opinion that is different from that with the kind of skepticism or scorn or righteousness? And to my mind, I find it amazing that 2,500 years ago, they started to, and maybe they had them before, formulate teachings, practices that help us not to get stuck in that way.

[10:43]

And then for each of us to find within ourselves the alchemy, the flexibility, you know, to not get hooked by our own opinions. Not to say we're wrong, but maybe in a way to go beyond right and wrong. And what does it take to do that? And then I thought, well, obviously Seamus Heaney will have a poem about this. For those of you who don't know, Seamus Heaney was an Irish poet who happened to come from the part of Ireland that I grew up in. But I couldn't find the particular poem I was looking for.

[11:54]

But I find another one. And that way in which we make the teaching accessible, that way We connect to it that way in which we find it appearing in our life, in our interactions, in our sense of self, in how we interact with others. And, you know, sometimes those marvelous and insightful teachings from 2,500 years ago, they can seem so lofty that it's almost like, when I'm enlightened, when I'm fully enlightened, I'll be able to do that.

[12:59]

Maybe doing that is as simple as a six-month-old baby playing peek-a-boo. And I think I thought of that because my daughter, who lives in Portland with her family, she's now here for a visit. And she was telling me of her current notions of practice. As I was recalling that this morning, I thought, and she wasn't that interested in my current notions. Sometimes it seems like the most important thing in our lives is me.

[14:14]

what I think, and my feelings, and my sense of purpose. And sometimes it's skillful to turn towards your own thinking, your own feeling, your own sense of a situation. and go through it. James Baldwin once said, well, I read that he said it, maybe he wrote it, he said, the way forward is through. You know, you meet it as completely as you can. And that's what these five factors are trying to teach us.

[15:19]

We can meet the moment. Maybe it's not as simple for adults as it is for six-month-old infants. That extraordinary way... Sometimes I think we come out of the womb... fully enlightened, present in the moment without any comparisons. Well, it's better than that moment, but not as good as that moment. We come out of the womb just present. And somehow... We have the genius to play peekaboo with being the one who's putting our hands in on the front of our face and disappearing.

[16:28]

When my daughter was about seven, she said to me, it's like this. There's a pie, and each slice of the pie is its own religion. There's a Buddhist slice, there's a Christian slice, there is an Islamic slice. And I said, what if you believe in nothing? And she said, that's just another slice of the pie. And once again, she startled me. She told me once, she said, guess what someone said to me in the schoolyard today.

[17:33]

They said, there is a heaven and a hell. And if you're good, you go to heaven. And if you're bad, you go to hell. And then she said, And that person actually believed that. And I thought, well, you know, I guess you're growing up in a Buddhist household, so you add a certain skepticism. And now I ask my daughter, do you remember when you said that? No. I mean, I don't ask her, do you remember when you were six months old and we were playing peekaboo?

[18:36]

But saying that in the schoolyard at seven or eight, I thought she might remember. To get close to our own being, and see it for what it is and can we resist the temptation of praise and blame right and wrong each of us is just who we are and we have the opinions that we have and we have the notions of practice that we have. And we have the ways in which we get hooked and the ways in which we go beyond getting hooked.

[19:40]

And this is our practice. Can we discover what is it for this one? to go beyond getting hooked by right and wrong. I'm right and you're wrong. Just a happy coincidence. How do we take a sacred place and feel the support it offers? You know, the Zen Center tries to be both a place for meditation and a place where people can come and remind each other of the value of goodness.

[20:46]

The generosity, the acceptance, the appreciation, the valuing. Can we offer that to each other? And can we see how it helps us to be ourselves? And often it helps the other person too. I've long since realized, you know, when we have a meditation, a seven-day meditation, you know, it's like we fortify each other's resolve. We support each other and inspire each other.

[21:52]

And this is how we renew our vow moment after moment, breath after breath. And it's not that different from when we come, when we walk in the doors and find out, well, this person doesn't think, doesn't draw the same conclusions as I do. So we could take that as a problem. We could determinedly try to convert them, help them see the right way, which happens to be my way. Can we help each other to make that nothing special

[23:00]

shift that actually addresses the human condition. And then the avid is challenged to translate those subtle and obvious inclinations into a gleaming sacred place. Yeah. So the teaching, the teaching I was thinking of was the five faculties. And the first faculty is Shraddha, which translates into a compilation of terms in English, you know, trust, confidence, and faith.

[24:27]

I've often thought that we earn our own trust. And maybe we earn each other's trust. That when we see ourselves not clinging to I'm right and you're wrong, when we see ourselves, well, I'm just thinking of me and expand it to we. Yeah. When we behave like that, there's something in ourselves that we trust. I am not just a selfish person who's all caught up in their own selfishness. I genuinely can care for others.

[25:34]

And as we earn our own trust, we start to have confidence in how that can be a basis for how we live our lives. And then the faith of the five faculties is not the faith of And there's some higher power that goes beyond our capacity to think. And it's more a faith that when we live a certain way, when we think a certain way, when we respond to situations in a certain way, that something in us is going beyond me.

[26:45]

And then the second factor is in Pali virya, which often it's it's translated as energy. A more complete translation would be persistence, diligence, persistence, and energy. Like sometimes, especially when we're hooked on some habitual way of thinking or behaving or responding to others, we have to diligently remind ourselves.

[27:51]

When we get caught up in making our to-do list during the middle of zazen, it's a certain diligence that pauses. and says, I'm here to be here, to discover what here-ness is and discover how to tune into here-ness. To resist the temptations of the urgency of our life, the desires and aversions that spring up in us. Can we pause and just allow those feelings to be what they are, but not to dictate how we're going to respond?

[29:04]

Can in that moment, can we pause? Can we accept the moment just as it is? Can we see the mind of the moment? Can we see the accompanying emotions? And then can we renew our vow? And in the bodhisattva vow, it's like, even if this happens a hundred thousand times during this 30 minutes of zazen, I will pause, I will meet, the moment will be met, and this will be a renewal of my vow.

[30:09]

This is the reckless request of being a bodhisattva. And as we do it, possibilities appear. Like when I had that conversation and somehow... we both refrained from trying to prove we were right. Somehow it drew us closer. We still didn't agree, but not agreeing was not the definitive sensibility. The sensibility was... We were both trying to do the right thing.

[31:19]

We were both consciously endeavoring to do what was appropriate. And somehow it drew us closer instead of pushing us apart. And how interesting that for 2,500 years our ancestors up until now have struggled with this, brought their deep intention to it. to ask ourselves, am I clinging to something?

[32:30]

Am I desiring something and not noticing what's already here in abundance? Can we study the self? And remember, as Dogen said, there are as many ways as there are minds. Both ways for each one of us to practice and ways to face the facets of practice. So when you have eight billion people, you have eight billion ways to practice.

[33:40]

And then the next faculty is sati. Noticing. in receptive awareness. I had a sudden thought, oh, there's a great poem in here, in this book, about receptive awareness. If I hadn't been awake, I wouldn't have heard of the leaves falling on the roof. The sand of the leaves falling on the roof.

[34:48]

The receptivity of the moment is the antidote to I have to be perfect. I have to make a kind of effort that's perfect. It's rather we just notice what's going on with a kind of receptivity. Because usually we have an experience, and then we create a concept, and then within that concept we create a narrative to go with it. And that narrative often invites us into a world that's good and bad.

[35:55]

that is filled with right and wrong. Can we let the moment be the moment? Can we let the person we are be the person we are? And that includes both diligence and compassion. And then our koan is, well, which is appropriate in this moment? A monk asked Dengshan, what have you learned from a lifetime of practice? Dengshan said, appropriate response. Can we pay close attention

[36:57]

to what's going on for us. And the last two, I'm just putting them together because I'm running out of time. Samadhi and prajna, often translated as Concentration and wisdom. Concentration of samadhi, it covers a range. It covers a range from a single-minded concentration on a particular object. Also, the range can be being fully receptive to the experiencing.

[38:07]

The mind doesn't automatically conceptualize and then create a narrative. It's just hovering there on the edge of being just what is. And in prajna, wisdom, is to see beyond the attribute of like or dislike. Do I like this? Is this a good thing? Is this something I want? we can get lost so easily and so readily in that way of thinking.

[39:10]

Wisdom, insight, is not getting hooked and seeing clearly what's happening now. Okay. This poem is called Two Lurries, Two Trucks, as it would be. It's raining on black cold and warm wet ashes. There are tire marks in the yard. Agnew's old lurry had all its cribs done, and Agnew, the coal man, with his Belfast accent, sweet-talking my mother.

[40:22]

Would she ever go to a film in Maherfeld? But it's raining, and he still has half the load to deliver further on. Each moment has its particularities. Somehow, often, we turn practice in and then I have to sweep up all those particularities and put them somewhere. Maybe the garbage can. Or maybe I think they're wonderful and they should be written down.

[41:25]

So maybe as we transition to the next thing, you can think about... What resonated for you? Hopefully something did in that talk. Shraddha virya sati samadhi prajna. Trust, energy, diligence, persistence, receptive awareness, continuous contact, with the moment. In prajna, seeing the big picture, seeing what it is to be me, what it is to live on planet Earth, what it is to have the

[42:43]

desires and aversions that I have. They're all teachers. 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.

[43:25]

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