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. Good morning. Morning. Morning. It's nice to see some faces that I know and then a lot of faces I don't. is equally nice. My name is Christina Lainhair. My Dharma names are Kiku Hoetsu, which means loom of emptiness, and Hoetsu means Dharma joy or Dharma ecstasy. And I have lived at Green Gulch for a little more than 10 years, way back, starting in the 80s and 90s.

[01:03]

And I'm very happy to be here today. And I have just a while ago ended a 10-week practice period at City Center, which I led. And the theme of that practice period was Buddha Body, Buddha Mind. And today I want to talk a little bit about the body. So if you would be so kind and for a moment take some time to actually first see if you're really, really sitting comfortably or if you need to adjust something to sit comfortably. And I invite you to do that any time your body tells you that it's not in comfort. This is not like Sazen, where we try to stay as still as possible and move only when it's really necessary and slowly.

[02:09]

During this talk, you can move whenever you need to. Please do. Because if we are not comfortable, we are less capable of being present. takes away our capacity to be present. And I now would like to invite you to check in with yourself. First, with your body, really sense into it in what state is it. Is it comfortable? Is it quiet? Or is it agitated? or nervous, or tense, or relaxed. What state is your body in at this moment? And there's nothing wrong with the state it is in. It's more important for you to know that, what it is at this moment.

[03:13]

Maybe it's exhausted, maybe it's tired, and just let it be the way it is. And then check in with your emotional state. What is your emotional landscape right now? Is it happy, sad, a mix of many feelings? Or is there a feeling that's prominent? And again, just take stops. And pay attention if you can, just let it be, or if you have an inner argument with how you feel, emotionally and physically. And also just notice that. And then check in with your mind.

[04:20]

What's running in your mind? What thoughts are running through? again the invitation is to just notice what is there without any added commentary to it I like it or I don't like it or I wish it were different or how wonderful anything just takes bare stock I will Hopefully not forget to come back to this because that's something you can take with you wherever you go. To, for example, before a meeting or before a task or before anything, before your family comes home or before you enter the family home from work, to pause a moment and check in and get in touch with your body, with your feelings and your mind.

[05:27]

I also would like to invite you to look around and see who else is here with you today, who spent the Sunday morning to drive over the hill or live here and be here. And it's just lovely to see you after so long. So, our body. the way it is at any given time is absolutely essential. Without it, this life is not happening. It's very simple and we keep forgetting that. Our body is what houses this life, this lifetime. It houses all our experiences, all our feelings, everything.

[06:43]

We cannot have a life outside or separate from this body in this lifetime. Maybe there are other forms of life, but we are all embodied in the body we have right now, and that is how we can live this life. You would have no thoughts, no feelings, no sensations, no perceptions, no smelling, tasting, touching, hearing, nothing without this body. And this body has absolutely no trouble to house and accommodate the being that each of us is. Being as a verb and being as a noun. That's the wonderful thing about the word being.

[07:46]

It's both a noun and a verb. And the being we are is a 360 degree holographic continuous being. And only a tiny little bit of that process actually rises into the level of the neocortex where we can think and have concepts and can make up stories which we are doing all the time about ourselves and about other people. But the body has no problem to house all aspects of our being. It's the ideas we have about ourselves that maybe create problems with different aspects of our beings. For example, during the 10-week practice period where the topic was the body and learning to listen to its wisdom and to follow its needs, I ended up with a

[08:56]

very acute painful osteoarthritis in my right hip which makes me feel like I'm suddenly 90 years old. So luckily I just was talking about all this and how to how to befriend myself with that state which is not like immediate you know first it's like why me, or I don't like it, or this is just too bad, why doesn't it come later when I'm done with the practice? Any of those thoughts and reactions and what can I do to get rid of it as fast as possible are coming through, and it takes time, particularly in the aging process, which is to some degree out of our control, or to a large degree actually, to keep harmonizing with what is and listen to what the body needs.

[10:04]

And how can we listen to it? One thing we practice also during the 10 weeks in which I would like to invite you all to experiment with is, can everybody hear me okay? Yes. So if you can, just make a sign that's visible and we can, you cannot hear me? You can hear, okay, great. So somebody in the practice period came to me and says, I'm really good at listening to my body. I always listen to it. I always check in with it. And she said that after about five weeks of the practice period. And she said, what I discovered was I listen and then I ignore what it told me. And it was a big and wonderful discovery for her because she was really skilled in hearing her body tell her what it needed.

[11:14]

And then she just ignored it because she had other ideas of what she should be doing or wanted to do. So That's the other thing. We can train ourselves to listen, like check in with our body and it tells us, I'm really tired. And then what do we do? How do we respond to that need? So if we can, or if you can, I recommend you take a nap. A nap is 30 minutes max. If you... Don't set an alarm and fall asleep for longer. You will wake up discombobulated because your body, after 30 minutes, goes into deep sleep mode, which tells the inner organs to start dumping toxins and regenerating themselves. But that's a function that's good in night when there is...

[12:19]

hours of doing that but if you're in the middle of the day and then you have to go to work we say we wake up in Switzerland we say you wake up besides your shoes you don't fit in your shoes you can't function really well if you can't take a nap another great thing is when you train yourself to check in with your body on a regular basis and you feel, for example, it's tired, then to harmonize your action with the energy level that's available. When we do that, when we move or speak or think or do things in harmony with the energy level that is available right now, what happens is that while we extend energy for the activity, we pick up energy.

[13:20]

It becomes a circular motion. We don't deplete our energy. What we usually do is we push and we tighten up, which then depletes our batteries and it takes much more time to recover. And that's, for example, something really interesting to play throughout the day, to check in, how much energy do I need to actually lift this thing, rather than just grabbing it automatically? How much energy do I need to really, just all I need to lift this cup? And when you do that, you can feel that your whole body, from your feet, from the earth, helps you lift this cup? And then how much energy does it take to put this cup down quietly rather than just banging it down or grabbing it up?

[14:21]

These are things you can do anytime in your office. Wherever you are, you can, if you remember, you can play with that and find out for yourself, is it different? How is it different? And if you do it, I would recommend you do it about for three weeks before you make a decision whether this is useful to you or not. Because if you each time think, does it help? You don't get the full experience. Also, this Buddhist practice is a very radical practice that actually asks everything of us. to really engage it, because it's a transformation at the base. That's why we say a Buddha body is a transformed body, because it goes into the cells, the transformation.

[15:25]

And so, to be able to do that, we have to cultivate tenderness, gentleness, compassion, patience, generosity, non-judgmental mind, grandmother or grandfather mind. If you had a lovely grandmother and grandfather, if you didn't have that, don't cultivate that mind. Not helpful. It's very important. Or maybe you had a teacher or a mentor that... that you feel like or an ant. So whatever was that non-judgmental attitude towards you that you may have and hopefully have experienced in your life, at some point you can use that as a model how to do this. also what we practiced for 10 weeks, and you can also do at home, because the idea of the practice period was really to do it 10 weeks, not shorter, because that might give us enough time to really create some patterns that are new and that we can continue when the practice period is over, was slowing down a fraction.

[17:05]

Because what happens is when we get stressed, when we have a lot of things on our plate, or when we have a time pressure, we tighten up. Our whole body starts tightening up and we push, start to strain, and we create the tunnel vision. I will share an example I've shared already many times, but it was so teaching me. When I was at City Center, after I lived here 10 years and came back from Switzerland to continue with my training, they sent me to City Center to be the head of practice, the tanto. So I had, of course, many meetings, and when I would be late, a little late for a meeting and was hurrying, I was hoping that nobody was going to be on my path to the meeting place because they were all going to be obstacle.

[18:18]

I didn't want to see anybody. I didn't like anybody. I just, you know. And when I remembered to slow down just a fraction, my whole sense, all my senses opened up. I noticed what the weather was outside the window, which I didn't notice when I was. heading to my meeting, and all the people on the way were friends. I could say, I'm sorry. They could say hello. I could say hello, and if they wanted to talk to me, I could say, I'm sorry, I cannot talk to you right now. Ask me later. I have to be at that meeting. But that wasn't an option when I was tightened up. They were just, get out of my way, you know. And already, I mean, I could feel it in my eyes, I could feel it in my face, I could feel it in my whole body, that defensive state of being hindered by friendly people, by my friends.

[19:23]

So if we slow down a fraction so that you notice, maybe nobody around you notice, but you slow down a fraction when you talk, when you pick up the phone, when you move from one place to the other, when you write, you immediately are more in touch with your body, with its energy level, and you are more peaceful, because that wasn't a peaceful state I was in when I was hurrying to my meetings. and creating spaciousness. So when you check in with yourself, what is the state of my body or my feelings, landscape, or my thoughts, my mind, just pay attention to that with that question opens a space for those parts of your body, the body, the feeling, to actually show up for you.

[20:35]

Because you might go through the day absolutely not consciously knowing in what state those three levels or elements in your body are. So that gives you much more capacity to harmonize with the body you have at that given moment. And our body does not need words, knows in the marrow of its bones and in every cell that it is intricately and inseparately connected and interdependent with everyone and everything in this universe. So cultivating peace within ourselves is crucial, particularly in these times.

[21:40]

And our body is such a great help because our mind is to a large degree co-opted by the ideas we have about ourselves, which we created growing up and which are often completely mistaken. So if as a child parts of you didn't get responded to by your caretakers because maybe they didn't know how, maybe they were irritated by them because they felt they didn't know how to respond, or they are too busy with worries or work or they are drunk or not healthy a child always thinks it's my fault there's something wrong with me otherwise they would not respond to me this way that's all a child can think it cannot see oh they have problems or they didn't learn or they didn't get responded to in that way so

[23:01]

And you may be told that this is your fault and you make daddy mad and so he beats you up or whatever. I mean, that's just what we can do. But then we keep carrying that. And those parts of us, internally, we keep away. We shut down. We don't express because we are completely convinced that if they show up, the response will be the same way. as it was when we were small. So to keep checking in with your body and practicing non-judgmental mind and curiosity of what is it, how is it, how does it want to be expressed and have the courage to do that in safe environments so where You start with small things that feel safe and find out that your ideas about yourself may be completely not applicable, really have anything to do with who you are.

[24:15]

So way, way, way back, I lived in communal living situation with friends and I, one day I said, I think I'm a perfectionist. And they all burst out laughing and said, oh, you just discovered that? We know that since ever. But I felt I had to hide this. But for that, A, what you think is hidden is not hidden. So that might be really helping to have courage because we discover things that everybody around us already has noticed because... how I handled things was still showing that I tried to make it perfect, you know. But then for me to relax around that made me be less stressed in that wanting things to be perfect. Like I moved my chair when I got here because I think I'm still not completely in front of the statue and it just does this to my body, you know.

[25:29]

Now I don't have eyes in black, so I can't see. But that's what I did, you know. But I do it now with no judgmental. You know, when I was Tonto and I was in search of the Eno and the altar wasn't completely lined up, at the beginning I had energy when I told them to line it up. And you have to actually go... To a distance, you can't see the alignment when you're close by completely. You have to go further back, stand in the middle of the bowing mat, and then you can see if everything is aligned. But before that, there was some level of judgment. Don't they see it? Or it's so obvious. But obvious for me may not be obvious for someone else. And that's the richness. We are all different and we need all the differences. If everybody was like me, that would be a very, very boring world.

[26:31]

Even though, of course, I would like them to be like me when it's a little irritating. But if I think about it, that would be horrible for all of us. If we were all like you, then there wouldn't be any liveliness. We would live on a tiny, tiny little island doing all the same thing in the same way. So cultivating stillness, spaciousness, patience, tolerance, endurance, steadfastness, to keep being curious, to keep practicing. tender endurance and gentle endurance, not stiff or harsh or stoic or even sometimes violent.

[27:39]

We can have very violent thoughts about ourselves when we don't do according to an idea what we should be able to do or do. We can be very, very unfriendly towards ourselves like We see now in the world that there are, you know, how people get persecuted and incarcerated and with absolute lack of kindness and humanness. But we do this to ourselves too. So that's why it's so important to cultivate that within ourselves, those capacities to live. to refrain from engaging those energies in ourselves. So I would like to read a poem.

[28:53]

to that and it's called it's by Jane Mara and it's called Mending the Tattered Web of My Heart the World I am mending the tattered web of my heart the world with plush emerald yarn of compassion and generosity I darn holes torn by blame and judgment with soft and sturdy strands of kindness and understanding. May I repair jagged ribs torn by despair and grief with braided grasses of gratitude and deep purple reeds of acceptance of things as they are. And where anger and fear burned gaping holes, may I relieve those with golden threads of forgiveness, gleaming copper cords of courage, and strong silver strands of trust, and strong silver strands of trust in the mysterious and holy unfolding of what is greater than I can know.

[30:24]

To strengthen this web of my heart, the world, I send out these healing threads to anyone who needs them, anyone at all in this whole world. And these are all the qualities we need to cultivate. And our life is the perfect ground for that because it presents us with all those things, with grief, joy, happiness, pain, sorrow, loss, achievement, failure, that all need those feelings. Patience, forgiveness, generosity, compassion, gratitude, acceptance of things as they are.

[31:35]

That's almost the first thing is to when something comes and we have a reaction to it, either positive or negative, to kind of create, give it space. That's creating spaciousness. Give it the big field, and be curious to really discover what is it really. Because we may have a quick idea about it, but things are much more complex than just their first appearance, or how they first appear for us. It's like when Dogen says in, I think it's in the Genjo Koan, when you sail out in a boat to the midst of the ocean, The horizon looks circular, and it does not look any other way. When you look around, the horizon is round. But the ocean is infinite in variety.

[32:35]

Because if you keep moving, then land comes up, so the horizon is not round anymore. So it's always everything. So we can see something, but there's always much more to it than we can see from... the place we are. And if we create a big space around it and keep curious about it, we start seeing other aspects of it. Or we start, it teaches us what kind of response does it need. What is an appropriate response to that, not the habituated reaction to it. So forgiveness, Courage, trust, kindness are all important. And we need to cultivate those so we can do the hard work of healing ourselves, of freeing ourselves from habits that bind us, that limit our capacity to express ourselves fully.

[33:46]

poem one more time. Mending the tattered web of my heart, the world. I am mending the tattered web of my heart, the world, with plush emerald yarn of compassion and generosity. I darn holes torn by blame and judgment with soft and sturdy strands of kindness and understanding. May I repair jagged ribs torn by despair and grief with braided grasses of gratitude and deep purple reeds of acceptance of things as they are. And where anger and fear burn gaping holes, may I re-weave with golden threads of forgiveness gleaming copper cords of courage. and strong silver strands of trust in the mysterious and holy unfolding of what is greater than I can know.

[35:20]

To strengthen this web of my heart, the world, I send out these healing threads to anyone who needs them, anyone at all in this whole world. The practice of gratitude is also really, really wonderful because, for example, if we lose somebody and then we have this sorrow and grief, there is a correlation between how wonderful the gift of this relationship was with the depth of the sorrow and grief. And if my father, for example, he and my mother were married 50-some years. When she died, he said, whenever I want to, whenever I grieve and I start falling into self-pity, what arises is gratitude for the long years of wonderful relationship.

[36:33]

They had a very alive relationship, my parents. They were very different, like opposites. But they knew that that was good for them. They had seven kids. I have six siblings. And he said, I can't just fall into self-pity because then the gratitude arises to balance. And we can invoke that ourselves, that when we're grieving, to not forget to also appreciate that we're grieving because we have such a great gift. So a friend who lost her partner said at the memorial, I have... received the great gift of an immeasurable loss and that was so made the whole thing so full it wasn't just the loss it was also the life acknowledging the life that was has been so I think we go straight into

[37:48]

Question and answer. And do we do the end each hand before then or after? At the very end. At the very end, okay. Good. If you have comments or share something that you feel fits in here or have a question, please, it's your time. Yes, please. Thank you for the Dharma talk today. It was beautiful. I could connect with you because I don't call myself perfectionist, but I like my bed, everything be organized. It doesn't matter how I feel in the day. And I wake up with gratitude every morning, even what's happening in the world. I worry about my mom long distance now and a lot of friends back in Iran.

[38:52]

I was born there. And I just try to meditate with a group on Zoom every morning and bring up all the gratitude, as you mentioned, and send them peace. That's all I can do. Yes. And being perfectionist, you know, my husband is sitting next to me. He knows even we go on a long trip, I have to make the house nice and stay. organized, because she keep telling me, why are you doing that as a joke? Are you making everything ready for the TV? They come, they say, what a beautiful organized house. I say, no, that's not true. That's for myself. When I come back from this long trip, I come to the environment that is peaceful and happy, and I feel like that. Yes. Thank you for sharing that. That's wonderful. And I do think if you engage the practice of gratitude every day when you wake up, just say a few things you're grateful for.

[40:02]

For example, to your body that it wakes up, that it gives you another day. And for having a roof over your head, which not everybody has. That having a job, having food. Whatever it is, having a friend. It will gladden your heart. If you do it before you go to bed, look through the day and just highlight for yourself a moment, a smile or an exchange or a kindness that came your way. You will end up in a world of abundance. When you think of what's lacking in the morning and when you think what's lacking in the evening, you start living in a world of scarcity. It's very simple, it's very powerful, and to do what gives you peace and allows you to function freely, as long as it's not coercive, as long as you don't ask your husband to do the same,

[41:15]

Yes, exactly. Because, you know, expectations are a setup for disappointment and a stressor for everybody. But there's so much power also in sending what you wish for us. And I recommend you say it out loud because when we say something out loud, we have to finish the sentence, which we don't have to do in our head. In our head, another thought can just come through and interrupt a thought. And it's an invitation to the universe to participate. We live in a participatory universe. We are its children. So when we say it out loud, we hear it. The sound touches our body. And we invite everything to support and assist us in that intention. And the energy goes.

[42:21]

We, at the end of service, or now, we send out the energy that's generated by your presence, by your willingness to spend time on Sunday here, into the world to support all beings with no exception, including government and government army and people on the street and people, everybody, with no exception. They may need especially a lot of support to get out of being trapped in ideas. And that's a tall order. Anybody else? Hi, Christina.

[43:24]

Hi. I really loved the quote from your friend at the funeral about the loss also being a gift. And I agree when I think of the loss in my life as it being a gift. But when I have friends going through loss, I can't tell them that it's a gift that's quite cruel. Yes. And I'm wondering if you have advice for how to best support friends or loved ones through loss. I think holding in your mind that they are grieving so much because they had a wonderful gift. And to maybe say, well, there is a correlation between how much that meant in your life and now you lost it. is the depths of your grief, not saying it's a gift or you had a gift, but often helps because it opens the space for them to possibly start feeling going between the two sides.

[44:35]

And I think when someone first loses somebody, it's just loss. I mean, there's... And all things take their own time. And grief is... totally individual and comes and goes, and the waves are very big at the beginning, so they just drown them, and then they're kind of side... What do you say? I can't find the word. Anyway, so they get just knocked off their balance by it, and then slowly they become less, you know, less stormy. And to just be with them and... You hold both spaces. And what I think helps them is being able to talk about the person they lost, to be interested in what did that person mean in your life, or, you know, and not when they're crying right then, but, you know, it's also part of weaving that back into their life, because we don't get over a loss.

[45:47]

Our lives lives around it and includes it, but it will always be there. Thank you. Thank you. Anybody else? Otherwise we can go to the tea and cookies. are also important. Thank you for listening to this podcast offered by the San Francisco Zen Center. Our Dharma talks are offered at no cost 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. May we fully enjoy the Dharma.

[46:48]

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