This podcast is offered by the San Francisco Zen Center on the web at www.sfzc.org. Our public programs are made possible by donations from people like you. Good morning. Yesterday, if there ever was a yesterday, I talked about this piece of Shinjin Gyakido. After we've established sympathetic communication of the truth, that is the Bodhi mind, we take refuge in the great truth of Buddhism, of the Buddhist practitioners, ancestors, and learn the concrete actions which are the establishment of Bodhi mind.

[01:11]

Okay? That's yesterday. Today is, this is the establishment of the Bodhi mind. It is the naked moment by moment mind. It is the mind of eternal Buddhas. It's the everyday mind. It's a triple world mind. prohibit re precepts and our grave precepts the last one says not to disparage the three treasures I could take refuge in them and then how does that how is that engaged in a way that supports both our human life and the process of

[02:36]

of realizing and awakening. And then in the one mind commentary, that one mind is, it's called one mind because it's all-inclusive, rather than the separate individual consciousness which is me separate from everything else. the one-mind precept says, to expound the Dharma with this body is foremost. The virtue returns to the ocean of reality. So, in Buddhist teachings, there's a term, rupa, And it can be described as body.

[03:44]

It could be described as that which is sensate, that which is experienced through the senses. And an interesting twist on it is that mind is one of the senses. So a thought experienced through mind part of the body of being. And, of course, we witness this all the time when we sit. We think something. It evokes an emotion. It evokes a physical response. It influences our sense of connection, our separation. to expand the Dharma with this body. The truth of what is, is an embodied truth.

[04:51]

So yesterday I was talking about breath. And trying to sell you on the notion that attending to allowing the inhale is worth the bother. I would still say that. I think it's worth the bother. Allow the inhale. Invite the doing of self-constructing to soften. And Dogen goes on, and he says, is this learning that this learning happens through casting aside these different kinds of mind this learning happens through picking up these different kinds of minds usually we have to cast aside

[06:20]

in order to see what has been taken for granted. And this interplay of the two, the casting aside and the picking up, is the wind of the Zen school. It's both real and not real. It both has the form of rupa and it's just a mere convention of the moment. So I'm going to now try to perform a magic trick. Here's the magic trick. I'm going to read a poem which is by Seamus Heaney who lived in the same area of the world, of the universe, of the cosmos, that I did.

[07:32]

So I'm going to try to read it in the local accent, which is how I spoke when I lived in that far-off land, in that distant galaxy. in a time far beyond this one. Two lorries. It's raining on black coal and warm wet ashes. There are tar marks in the yard. Agnew's old lorry has all its cribs down, and Agnew, the coal man, with his Belfast accent, sweet talk on my mother. Would you ever go to a film with him in Mahrefelt? But it's raining. and he still has half a load to deliver further on. This time, the load our coal came from is silk black, so its ashes will be the silkiest white. The maher felt via Toonbridge bus goes by.

[08:38]

The half-stripped lorry with its emptied, folded coal bags moves my mother, the tasty ways of a leather-aproned coal man. Are you going to translate that into English now? Okay. A lorry, in case you don't know, is what ordinary people call a truck. Maharafelt and Thunbridge are two small little towns in Northern Ireland. Back in the day, when real people got their heat from coal fires, someone had to deliver it to them, and they delivered it in coal trucks, in bags.

[09:47]

In the Diamond Sutra, it says, the Buddha, Ask Shakyamuni, ask Subhuti. He says, Subhuti, are the specks of dust in the universe numerable? And Subhuti says, yes, indeed, O Lord, the specks of dust in the universe are numerable. And the Bhagavad teaches them, as no specks of dust, Therefore, we can call them specks of dust. We pick something up. We engage it. And in the engagement, something is sparked.

[11:06]

And if we're paying attention, we see the magic, the miracle of creation out of nothing. And we also see what is created. What is created is form, and the process of creation is shunyata. Emptiness. No form. Ruijing said, the zendo is where we carve a cave of shunyata out of a mountain of form. Of course, we can also say, what form? I mean, all those ideas and opinions and judgments and memories and feelings that we bring in the door, and then somehow, despite them, we sit, we chant, and one voice, in one body, magically appear.

[12:37]

And the genius that he was, Seamus Heaney, picks up a speck of dust, a coal truck, coming to his. They lived on a farm, coming to their farmyard. And for that, the world honored him. He was given the Nobel Prize for Literature. He was given a lecture seat at Oxford University. He was invited to lecture in all the esteemed colleges of the Western world. And all he was talking about was his mother and the coal man. What's so great about that? What's so great about the spark that creates form out of shunyata?

[13:53]

What's so great about seeing, feeling, hearing, tasting the particular of the moment and not grasping it? And not being hooked. And not mistaking it for something absolute, permanent. Something that echoes and reifies what's happening internally. This is what the Diamond Sutra repeatedly talks about. Here's the fixed entity of conventional constructs, and here's how it can simply be the magic of the moment.

[15:06]

To read something accent of where you came from. I go back each year, and close to there, hold a shashin in a Catholic seminary. And once the groundskeeper asked for dokesen, He wanted to talk about suffering. In particular, he wanted to talk about his suffering. This spark, the gift that that which comes into being

[16:21]

offers, the challenge that that which comes into being offers. And we can say in Seated Zazen, the challenge for us is to connect so thoroughly. Yakusan again said, in Zazen, form disappears. in experiencing. And the great mystery and paradox of our practice is we engage it fully and it becomes shunyata. It becomes interbeing. And then Dogen Zenji says, And it's apprehended as such by different kinds of consciousness.

[17:28]

There's the consciousness of moment-to-moment awareness, paying attention, hearing the sound called jet airliner flying across the sky. Maybe noticing if any other thoughts got appended to it. Maybe noticing pleasant or unpleasant. Maybe noticing did it agitate or did it soothe the state of mind that apprehended it.

[18:35]

This interplay is the interbeing. This interplay is the interbeing of Kano Doko. This interplay is the stuff of being alive. Moment by moment, These endless little details of Soto Zen. I would say to you, in the world of Soto Zen, it's helpful to remember that inside each little detail lurks

[19:40]

Ten more little details. You think, oh, this is the detail of bowing. No, that's just the beginning. Endless details. Some people love them. Some people detest them. Oh, for God's sake. Can we just bow? What's the fuss? Moment-by-moment mind. When we pay close attention to how we do Aureoki, we discover that this seemingly randomly constructed prescription actually has within it an elegance of movement.

[20:52]

When we engage carefully, each movement does what it does and nothing extra. When we engage the moment, and experience, it does what it does without anything extra, the spark of it is more apparent. And then you've got a great genius like Shemeshini, and he says, but it doesn't have to be just the initial physical sensation of the inhale it can be a whole world system in that moment it can if you want to deliver a bag of coal first you create maher felt then you create tumbridge then you create some reason two lorries

[22:10]

with their cribs done, and silky black coal, and silkier white ash, and a wet yard, and a mother, and Mr. Radnew. And that's only the first two verses. then the mind of the eternal Buddha, the mind that goes beyond time. When we delve into the particularity of Aureoke, then that's worried about, am I going to be able to sit here without moving?

[23:22]

Because my knee already hurts. And they've only served firsts. It's a long, long way before this is over. And how amazing. given such dire circumstances, such important considerations that are necessary for survival, that under those circumstances, that just tasting the mouthful of food can make that world vanish and another one appear. This utterly obvious, mysterious, miraculous world of four seems so utterly obvious and concrete when it's fully engaged.

[24:39]

Becomes fluid. mysterious and those moments by moment thought make evident you know the accompanying thoughts okay so I need a strategy how long shall I sit like this shall I wait until they've served seconds or shall I wait until they bring in the water. Or like a fool, like an idiot, shall I just not know? Because maybe that construct, desperately important as it seems right now,

[25:49]

is just a construct. Could life really be that ephemeral? And what if time itself is just a construct? What if what's being apprehended in now beyond time, or as Dogen Zenji sometimes says, which has its own past and future, like firewood and ash. Maybe they didn't have coal trucks where he lived. So we can say, instantaneous beyond time or we can say eternal and when we let down into that something shifts do we get it um sometimes

[27:17]

Sometimes we don't. Sometimes we feel something. Sometimes we feel obliged to make sense of it. Sometimes the karmic formations rush back in. Wait a minute, wait a minute. Pain in this knee is serious. Enough of your Buddhist stuff. Let's get back to what's important. And the everyday mind. ditches these moments together.

[28:25]

The load of coal is only half delivered. Despite the fact that Mr. Agnew is making a pass at my mother. This fits into the context of the so-called reality. And that's the functioning of here and now. It's not a terrible delusion. It's a functioning of here and now. And these minds, you know, as they move back and forth, they create within us a fluidity, an adaptability.

[29:51]

nothing but the taste of the potatoes and eggs but when the server comes to collect the comasio put it tied put your hands in garcio and bow that's this world we move from one world to another Sometimes that movement gets a little sticky. We're still back in that one when this one appears. We're so busy waiting for that one to appear, we miss the one we're in. This world of form. And then within...

[31:05]

five or six feet of red flesh. So much. If you look at it psychosomatically, all those embodied experiences, the intensity of having made its imprint, the five or six feet of red flesh and then we sit and we take up the details of posture and again it's very helpful to remember that within each detail there's ten more details we're never done learning about the body And I would say to you, this is a very helpful way to start each sitting.

[32:18]

We're never done learning about mind. We're never done learning about breath. We're never done learning about body. We start with everyday mind. Okay, let's get this show on the road. Take your posture, arrange your cushions, straighten your back, put your hands in the mudra. And then, as there's a settling, as there's a connecting, as there's a noticing, more closely experienced body then moderate the subtle shifts and now the subtle shifts you're making either because you have a fixed idea about the icon or are they subtle shifts that enable

[33:42]

sukha the antidote to dukkha the alternative to dukkha what subtle shifts help the body to become more receptive to experience subtle shifts incline awareness from thinking about body to experience body I would say you each time we sit gently diligently we take this out everyday mind can become coarse.

[34:52]

Seen it before. Done it before. Put my body in zazen posture. Yeah, yeah, I know all about that. You don't have to say anything. Got it. Done it. Been there. Hmm. That coarse mind misses the spark. It misses the particular little details of how the body is this period. Its coarseness tends to contract sukha. to entice dukkha.

[36:02]

And so I've been saying, allowing the inhale allows body to be body, allows attention to attend in this way, not because it has a fixed agenda and knows what should be happening next, but because it doesn't know but because it's available to learn. Each inhale, as mysterious as a lorry, a cold lorry on its way to maharafelt, what is it to let the sukha of breath melt the body into floating water?

[37:11]

What is it when the breath doesn't melt the body into floating water? What is it to attend to how moment of pain, the sensation of pain, sets in motion. The other day as I started to sit, my left knee started to hurt. And I thought, uh-oh. What to learn when you hang around this sort of thing? is you can never tell. Sometimes you sit down and your cushion feels like a bed of feathers. But before the period's over, it's a bag of jagged rocks.

[38:24]

Sometimes you sit down and you think, is this my pillow? Then wonderfully you settle in and it disappears. This body, these sense organs that co-create rupa, whole creates the whole universe. Moment after moment, within eternal now, outside eternal now,

[39:37]

In a nothing special, nothing special. Okay, so that's how it is. Surely pretty soon this talk is going to be over, and then you can go and have a luxurious outside painting. Unless, of course, the Shusou has fallen into a state of Zen fervor. and thinks, let's stay indoors. Let's sit with all three minds and celebrate the majesty of Zazen. And with every now mind, Tend your body.

[40:43]

Struggling with pain is tiring. Struggling with pain creates secondary contractions. Your knee hurts, so it has this wonderful reflex, the nervous system, to contract. take the blood out of the capillaries, which carries the sensations, and numb the pain. Of course, that also reverberates, the contraction reverberates through, your shoulders tighten, your jaw tightens. And whenever the idiosyncrasies of your body are, they're activated. the spacious ease of sukha is separated from how much pain should you sit through a wonderfully practical coin I would suggest to you as you explore it

[42:22]

Reflect. Which way do I tend to lead? Do I tend to force my way through? Or do I tend to have a strategy that helps me avoid? And watch. Don't know how long you should sit without pain. Watch the interplay of pain, of dukkha, of contraction, possibly secondary contraction, and the allowing inhale that offers an ease.

[43:29]

an opening or releasing. There's a complex interplay that happens there. And as we explore it, we start to see how that complex interplay happens everywhere. The whole of love, every moment is an interplay. Maybe they don't present themselves with the formidable authority of the pain, but they do present themselves. If you're blessed with outside kinhin by the boundless compassion of a shusul,

[44:30]

I would say, watch as you pass into that interplay of sights and signs and smells. Do you allow it to arrive here and create its own dependent co-arising? Or does mind think, oh, good, now that my knees don't hurt, I'll think about this and that. And even if that's the case, can the environment offer, can you accept the offer to experience the sense-doers and come back to... Now.

[45:33]

The eternal Buddha of now. And since we have Seamus Heaney here in person, let's... He died four years ago, last August, while we were in Sushin, in Benberg. I not been awake. Had I not been awake, I'd have missed it. A wind that rose and whirled until the roof pattered with quick leaves off the sycamore and got me up, the whole of me a patter, alive and ticking like an electric fence. Had I not been awake, I would have missed it. It came and went so unexpectedly.

[46:36]

and almost it seemed dangerously returning like an animal to the house a courier blast from there and then lapsed ordinary but not ever after and not now not being awake with the universe have turned inside out with this little experience have expanded to create its own world of thought that I felt so many times, I thought nothing of it, suddenly become a teacher.

[47:51]

That's one possible way to think about it. Had I not been awake, For more information, visit SSCC.org and click Giving.

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