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. So this is the new normal. One day, wet spring, warm wet spring. One day, sunny summer. One day, frosty winter. And all in a random order. And somewhere in all of that, part of us searching out the new normal, creating familiarity, predictability, dependability.

[01:27]

pursue our lives and all the particulars and circumstances that we're doing that in the midst of asserting their influence stimulating us in a whole variety of ways and our responses to them stimulating us like bread, dough, being kneaded. Some part of us in the service of normal, in the service of predictability, manageability, understandability, trying to create, trying to craft

[02:28]

some enduring being. And all the circumstances and experiences working us over, kneading us like dough, or like the metal on a samurai sword. I've heard they beat it and fold it 3,000 times. You know, the more it's beaten flat, folded over, beaten flat, folded over, the more the quality of the metal comes forth, its strength, its resilience. Maybe it's something similar in the workings of Zen practice on our human nature. Whether we rush forward lovingly into the arms of change or whether we resist it with all our might, still it happens.

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Still it influences us. Still it turns us, it bends us, flattens us, rebends us. And then we come into Shashin and the process is intensified. Because the metal doesn't accommodate such treatment until it's intensely heated, until it's energized, until something in the workings of the situation brings forth a malleability. an adaptability, a capacity to engage this turning and bending and being beaten flat. And the very human responses we have are part of this intensity, this heat.

[05:02]

our response to the frosty cold our response to the warm rain the midday Sun and the schedule and staying with the schedule teaching us training us helping make manifest the heartbeat of practice. Whatever's happening, be in the middle of it. Be so much in the middle of it, you're not separate from it. If it shapes you, if it bends you, so be it.

[06:10]

Don't resist it. Don't cling to it. So here we are in this never-ending machine. How can it end? Is impermanence going to end? Is the dynamic nature of dependent core rising going to end? Or will it simply be that the kitchen will stop serving us meals? So this is about breathing out and breathing in.

[07:20]

It's about, don't hold it in. Waiting for what? Just the right moment to be fully alive. Exhale. Just inhale. OK. So it's going to change you and you'll never be the same. Were you that great anyway? Were you that magnificent that not a single part of you should change? I remember the very first retreat I did was 10 days, and the third day I thought, uh-oh, this is going to really change me.

[08:28]

And I thought, ah, so what? I'm not that great anyway. Are any of us that great that we shouldn't allow ourselves to be part of impermanence? And marvelously, in some ways, despite all our protests and resistance and distractions and hesitancies and preoccupations, this fierce, beautiful process carries on. And we come back to the Zendo, sometimes determined sometimes deeply appreciative, sometimes resentful, reluctant, sometimes distracted with other places, other things.

[09:43]

And we bring them all to just here, just now. This is our practice. And when we allow this kind of spirit, this kind of attitude, this kind of bondless, formless devotion to just now, those very same agitations, distractions, resistances, all the plethora of responses that a human life can generate. Rather than having to tussle with them, negotiate with them as the obstacles to the purity of practice.

[10:52]

And they just become raindrops on a rainy day. So that, believe it or not, was my introduction to Bendawa. And if you don't see the connection, well, too bad for you. Benda was, you know, a fascicle written by Dogen Zenji. The person we, I think, we can blame for the mess we're in right now.

[12:02]

It is his his life and his teachings that have inspired this style of practice. Bendawa was apparently, according to Nishijima Roshi, discovered much later. Dogen lived in the 13th century and then Bendawa was discovered about 1670. And somehow or another it had got lost in the shuffle. And then it was incorporated into the Shobu Gensu as number one. Endeavoring on the way. And the noon chant that we do

[13:07]

self-receiving and employing samadhi, that catchy title, is really lifted straight out of Binduwa. A little bit of his personal rambling at the start is left out. But in his setting the stage, talking about the heritage of Zen and his own relationship and particular path. He mentions Nangaku, the person who instructed Master Ma of this very mindless Buddha. Nangaku was the person who set him straight on the subject. Is the awareness of the moment going to come as a product of your efforts?

[14:17]

Or are you going to give over to the moment and let that awareness be realized? Where are you going to place your effort? So this was the instruction from Master Ma. And in Bendawa, Dogen Zenji holds this instruction of Nangakus up, saying, this was the wind in the sails of the Zen school. give birth to the different branches of Zen.

[15:22]

This being in the moment. And both Nangaku and Dogen Zenji talk about it is formless. You can't prescribe the complexity of the human response to practice. You should feel angry this much, resentful this much, deeply grateful this much, devoted this much, ambivalent this much, dieting this much. Put them all together, add a little milk and butter, and there you have it. a baked Buddha.

[16:26]

There is no prescription. We give over to something. And the giving over cooks us. in some extraordinary, potent way, our devotion and our resistance, our clarity and our confusion, our generosity and our selfishness, self-receiving and employing samadhi. Kishkas Tanahashi's description, our translation.

[17:49]

Self-receiving and employing samadhi is the mark of awakening. Buddhas transmitted to Buddhas without deviation. Sitting upright, practicing Zen, is the authentic gate to free yourself in the unconditioned realm of this samadhi. Although this inconceivable dharma is abundant in each person, it is not actualized without practice, and it is not experienced without realization. It is not actualized without practice, and it is not experienced without realization. To get semantic for a moment, you can see there Dogen's primary teaching, that actualization and practice occur together.

[19:05]

It's not actualized without practice. When we practice, when we engage the moment, something is sparked. This process of being worked over, this process of not being separate from impermanence, codependent arising, null, independent, substantial self. It's being actualized. It's expressing its truth in the doing. It's not something we figure out. The reason we emphasize body is because our body will often show us how it is, how it's happening.

[20:14]

And as we sit there with that body trying to figure out how the heck it's feeling, what it's feeling right then, you know, we get a real taste of that it's beyond words and ideas. It's not actualized without practice. And it's not experienced without realization. So this vital activity of existence is always happening. We can only think we're separate from it. We can only think there's an I or a we to be separate from it. But what is it to experience it?

[21:23]

What is it to pause in the middle of the intense drama of Shashin? And to let something be. So be it. This is where I am. This is where we are. This is what's happening. This is today's weather. Some deep acceptance. So be it. I like it. I don't like it. I approve. I don't approve. I have an understanding. I don't. So be it. Beyond human agency. But as it's engaged, the potency of this existence becomes effective.

[22:48]

When it's experienced, something is realized. This is the koan of Zazen. This is the primary koan of the Zen school, in particular the Soto Zen school. And then I have been misleading you with such phrases as what's happening now this very mind is Buddha in the service of creating of drawing forth a willingness

[24:03]

to meet each moment just as it is. And then I've been belaboring the point saying that such a way of practice brings to the human condition, brings to the state of consciousness attributes that are helpful for both practicing and realizing. For both actualizing and experiencing. Meeting it as it is and not wasting effort on what it should be. Or turning away with an idea of what it's not.

[25:09]

This willingness to experience, cultivating the patience, the courage, the perseverance, refining the effort as it starts to become apparent to see more subtly the difference between experiencing what is and trying to manufacture what is. The difference between experiencing what is and trying to stop what is in the service of something else. And this tends to open, enliven, bring balance, equanimity to consciousness.

[26:36]

And you could read bendava, you could read self-employing and self-receiving samadhi as that's it. But in the face of potential heresy, I will continue. hearkening back to Nan Gaku. Because Master Ma, after getting the message, said, Teacher, could you tell me more about this? How exactly do you do this formless practice? I mean, if it's formless, how do you engage your effort? If it's a matter of sitting there and doing nothing, how do you do nothing?

[27:58]

And so yesterday I was saying, this is the Mahayana mind. Everything's originally itself, no practice, no attainment, no path. However, We have this small matter of human habituated existence to deal with. This marvelous and frustrating capacity we have to create the new normal and then as we move in to bring all the usual furniture and baggage that we always take with us in three semi-trailers. not just two pieces of luggage, semi-trailers. Maybe we could say, well, if it wasn't for all that baggage, we could move into the new normal, open the doors and the windows.

[29:15]

Experience what is and realize even the doors and the windows and the roof and the floor are just mere appearance. But the thing is, when you have your furniture all over the place and your favorite photographs and your rugs and your lamps and your sofa, It's hard to believe such a beautiful dwelling could be mere appearance. So to meet each of these marvelous constructs and to notice this marvelous piece of furniture of mental furniture of emotional furniture this marvelous drapery of my memory and this beautiful picture conjured up by my anticipation each and all of them

[30:49]

subject to impermanence in the noticing it doesn't last in the experiencing as it's experienced it becomes something like energy. That there's something dependently co-arisen in it. So Nan Gaku says master mom he says sonny boy there's something else you need to know it's not enough just to have the general idea wonderful as that idea is to start to experience all the beautiful furniture in the normal

[32:20]

in the world according to me is mere appearance to experience it as fully as possible as you practice not turning away let it ripen into just this And I would say this. Of course, whatever arrives, arrives. Sacred, profane, complex and involved, simple and fleeting. The same mind, the same attitude, the same receptivity.

[33:30]

very mindless Buddha. Beyond the words. Just the expression of that willingness. But Master Ma was in this for real. And he said, how do I do it? I mean, how am I going to do that? It's great. I love this story, but tell me. Come on. How? And today I'm going to give you my version. True heresy. What can you do? Offer your best effort.

[34:38]

Each moment of Zazen is a great coin. Nangaku said, it's like coming up against a cliff a thousand miles long and a thousand feet high. Just keep going. Make your best effort. And I would say, return to the breath. As we continue to practice, it's more like the basic practice, our understanding, our appreciation of it, ripens and deepens. It's not like the idea, the concept, the request of practice becomes more convoluted and and complex.

[35:40]

It's like when we were seven or eight years old, we got the message, I'm going to die. Things are impermanent. But have we realized yet the profundity of that? Some part of it doesn't change. The message still is you're going to die. But the profundity of it. So we return to the breath with the taste that the whole world hangs in the balance in that swinging door of inhale and exhale.

[36:50]

This is not a trivial affair in some corner of reality in the back closet of the new normal. The very appearance of normal flows in and out with the inhale and exhale. This is not attending the breath with some stray corner of attention while the rest of your mental energy is used up in what you want and don't want and what you resent and what you desire. This is looking at what is it to be nothing but? What is it to let willingness ripen from acute idea to an actualized practice?

[38:01]

And as Prajna Tara says, I study this sutra hundreds and thousands of times. And the breath and its teaching, this teaching of nothing but teaches me Nothing but the sign of the creek. Teaches me nothing but wholehearted chanting. Teaches me nothing but kin hin. Teaches me nothing but this arising annoyance at that person who's not chanting just the way I think they ought to be chanting. the Dharma banner has been raised by the energy given to mere appearance reifying it bringing it into startling experience

[39:37]

And given the unrelenting creativity of human consciousness, just the same way we bring our body back to this hall, as Ruijin called it, the cave of emptiness hollowed out of a mountain of form. As the same way as we bring our body back to that, discovering this body's relationship to the physical universe, discovering that this nirmanakaya is an ever-available teaching.

[40:47]

It draws us, it holds us in the realm of practice. And even though we unrelentingly create the new normal, is that it keeps saying, okay, we'll try this on. You got used to the warm rain? Well, guess what's next? Snow. Well, maybe not. Maybe a sunny afternoon. And after a while, something in us goes, whatever, bring it on. So attending to the breath, because fiercely it's not enough to just bring your body to the withered tree hall, to bring

[42:13]

Each moment of being creates the heat, creates the virya, the energy that lets each moment spark. So I say, come back to the breath. But just make a big deal out of it. Such a big deal that it's nothing. That it's nothing special. It's just your life hanging in the balance.

[43:22]

with each inhale and exhale. Check it out. Don't breathe for 10 minutes. See how you feel about that. of giving over to the schedule. The kusala of refining our effort, of seeing the yoga. What is it to attend to be part of what's arising? No one can do it for us. No one can give us a laundry list of all those subtle details about how to work with our body and our breath and our habits of mind and emotion.

[44:23]

In-sitting, in-sitting in, self-employing and receiving attention. The kusala of working with those details comes forth. There's that again. What is the softening that's not suppression, that's not denial, that's not rejection. It's just meeting it as this is what's coming up. Just the same way the warm rain is falling. I could get excited. I could get depressed. Or whatever. But not whatever that moves to neglect.

[45:35]

Whatever that becomes intimate. So this working with human consciousness... In the heritage of the whole of Buddhism, working with the breath is held up as one of the most skillful and potent ways to work with it. In the Zen school, we hold the big mind of the Mahayana. It's all mere appearance from the very beginning. no matter how well furnished the house of normal is its mere appearance and within that mere appearance this devoted engagement not because we're

[46:48]

making something happening that isn't happening. That without experiencing, there's no realization. Without the practice, there's no actualization. The more fully it's engaged, the more this transformative process what's it transformed into? more than what you think it is what's it transformed into? what it's always been the suchness of what it is That's my response to Nangaku.

[48:00]

And rather than read his poem on the subject, I'm going to read one by Merlin. You know, I've long since realized that we're all here because we are not only stupid and stubborn, but we're also rebellious. Here's Merlin's version of justice. When I think of the patience I've had back in the dark, Before I remember or knew it was night Until the light came all at once At the speed it was born to With all the time in the world to fly through Not concerned about any ever arriving And then gathering of the first stars Unhurried in their flowering spaces And far into the story The planets cooling slowly And the ages of rain And then the seas starting to bear memory The gaze of the first cell at its waking

[49:24]

And how did this haste begin? This little time, at any time, this reading by lightning, scarcely a word, this nothing, this heaven. Okay, I'll read it again. When I think of the patience I've had back in the dark, before I remember or knew it was night, until the light came all at once at the speed it was born to, with all the time in the world to fly through, not concerned about ever arriving, and then the gathering of the first stars, unhurried in their flowering spaces. And far into the story, the planets cooling slowly at the ages of rain, then the seas starting to bear memory, the gaze of the first cell at its waking.

[50:34]

How did this haste begin? This little time, at any time, this reading by lightning, scarcely a word, this nothing, this heaven. this amazing human consciousness that we can think about the whole process of the universe's creation that we can get ourselves into so much trouble And that very trouble can teach us about the nature of what is and the path of liberation and the actualizing and realizing of how that is.

[51:42]

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.

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