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. I was doshi for morning service this morning and we were chanting the Heart Sutra and... the phrase in the middle sort of stood out for me. For those of you who don't know, the Heart Sutra, in the service of Prajnaparamita, the perfection of wisdom, wisdom that goes beyond our ideas, our concepts, our understandings, in the service of realizing that, it's in two parts. And the first part is negation. It's not this, let go of that, let go of that, let go of that.

[01:00]

And then there's a pivotal phrase, and then after that it's party time, it's all celebration, great miraculous wonder, supreme mantra, this exaltation of the joy of practice. Somehow the phrase stuck with me because it's right there in the middle. It's almost like, okay, we can get stuck in that, we can get stuck in that, we can get stuck in that. And if we turn it, the very same human condition is a mantra, is a repeated expression of awakening. And then what is that turning?

[02:03]

And the phrase says, with nothing to attain, a bodhisattva relies on prajnaparamita, and thus the mind is no hindrance, and with no hindrance there is no fear. The mind is no hindrance. So at that point, all those things we've been diligently not getting stuck in, negating, not exactly negating, I think letting go of is a better term. So how to do that? So that's what I thought I'd talk about this evening. What my thoughts are in that pivotal turning. How do we take the seemingly endless ways we can trip ourselves up?

[03:07]

How do we relate to that? That the very same content of existence illustrates the ways to liberate. How do we do that? And just to confuse you, before I get into that, I'm going to read this poem. I was sitting upstairs in my office, which is about there, and the window was wide open, and I was looking out at this Japanese maple, and the light was fading, and somehow I had this whole notion of giving this talk. And then I walked in here, and it was like bright lights and totally different. my first thought was, I should give an entirely different talk. The talk I was going to give worked upstairs, looking out at the Japanese maple and this space, a wide open window and a darkening sky in a balmy evening.

[04:29]

Maybe this captures some of that It's a poem by Seamus Heaney, an Irish poet. Had I not been awake, had I not been awake, I would 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 unexpected and almost it seemed dangerously returning like an animal to the house. A courier blast that there and then lapsed ordinary. A courier blast that there and then lapsed ordinary. But not ever after.

[05:33]

and not now. This poet has a habit of starting off with a wonderfully simple and obvious imagery and then gets down to, and not there and then and not ever after, but lapsed ordinary. That way the moment as we start to pay attention. You know, anyone of us who's done zazen for more than ten minutes has discovered that our human consciousness is amazing. What it can create. And yet, in the middle of that, we can look out the window and see the Japanese maple. You know, we can hear the roar of the motorbike going up the street. And it enlivens, it awakens, it embodies something about being alive.

[06:45]

It's obvious, it's simple, in a way it requires no effort. And yet, when we sit down to do Zazen, we make a big fuss. Something in the workings of being human has a lot to say for itself. It presents its own commentary on being alive. And of course we sit with a deliberate intention to make it orderly and some charming Dharma gate and almost invariably it presents itself as unruly, demanding, wild.

[07:51]

Last night in the middle of the night I had my window open, I live across the street, and a raccoon was trying to climb in the window. Marvelously, as I thought, well, I'll frighten it away, and it looked at me like, I'm not frightened. This life is wild and unruly, haven't you noticed? I'm part of it. the Heart Sutra says, and the mind is no hindrance. So what way is the mind related to that it's no hindrance? Is it with fierce, determined effort? In the early suttas it says, and it's like a wrestler wrestling diligently and strenuously

[09:03]

wrestling the mind into submission. And then it goes on and says, and that doesn't work. Even if you wrestle the mind into submission in one moment, the next moment it gets up and climbs in your window in the middle of the night. In response to my own question, I'd like to offer you two notions. I think, in many ways, there's endless Dharma gates. But in another way, I think it can be said, there's two broad categories. And the first broad category is what you might call, follow it back to the source.

[10:09]

Dogen Zenji, the founder of this style of Zen, he described it as taking the backward step. It's like this experience in its manifestation has implicit within it all sorts of constructs of what the world is, about what the self is, about what should happen, what should not happen. It's imbued with our agendas for what we want and what we don't want, what needs to happen, what should stop happening. And we bring attention to it. We notice it as it is. And in that attention, It's like we're moving from the gestalt of the construct to the particularity that brought it into being.

[11:22]

And so one of the teachings in this regard is the five hindrances. Two couples, desire and aversion, restlessness and sluggishness, And then if they've got you confused, you have doubt. That's the fifth one. Kind of simple modality. Desire and aversion, restlessness and sluggishness and doubt. And then usually when they arise for us, they evoke within us, some psychological significance. Maybe something about our sense of self. Or our sense of our place in the world, or just the way we've created a personality.

[12:32]

And they they energize, they spark some array of the attributes of our own being. And most of our moments are sparked in that way. There's a particular experience and then we wrap around it how this is relevant, appropriate significant to me. I think of the raccoon coming up to my window. It had this kind of strange chirping sound. Almost humorous and friendly. But there it was.

[13:38]

substantial in size. And there I was, half asleep. And in that half asleep state, sort of trying to weave the raccoon into the dream that I was having moments before. How does this fit into the world that I was so diligently conjuring up. So there was that, and then there was, no, no, no, you can't come into my bedroom. That would be terrible. That would be awful. That would be... violate a certain security. Most of our moments have these elements in it.

[14:45]

The particulars of the moment are arriving and challenging and confronting the world we're creating. And we're trying to assimilate them, make sense of them, inside the constructs and definitions that we're operating with at that moment. And then the teaching of the hindrances is saying, these are like energy sources. These are like predispositions that we're inclined to engage. And then we bring attention to them. And then we can be quite deliberate. What's the physicality of desire?

[15:57]

What's the mental constructs of the particular things that I desire and tend to cling to? And how do they register and take relevance in this psychological being? And then the very interesting thing is, as we do that, without quite realizing it, as Dogen Zenji says, we forget to follow the dictates and the agendas of me. what do I want? What's in it for me? What do I want to avoid? We become more caught up in the particularity of how it all comes into being and how it interplays. It's like the process of it becomes more appealing than

[17:12]

the outcome that arises from the agenda of the self. And these energies that, under normal conditions, when we feed them and act them out and let them define the world in our behavior, in our responses, they tend to hinder. They tend to stop us, make us stuck. And yet the very same particularities when attended to in a different way they reveal something. They start to reveal the technical term in Buddhism is shunyata. This interbeing, this interconnectedness, this interactiveness that every moment has within it.

[18:18]

This is what starts to become apparent, starts to show its dynamic energy as we pay attention. This is the of Prajnaparamita the functioning of wisdom beyond wisdom when we go beyond our ideas we experience directly this interbeing and as we follow it back to the source all the different ways that reality is being constructed in a way, start to be deconstructed. So the Heart Sutra is on this journey of deconstructing.

[19:25]

This isn't substantial and real. This category of being isn't substantial and real. This category, even suffering, which seems so utterly convincing. Even the sense of practice. So as we attend to this energy of our being and let its particularity be noticed and then attend to that. And then as I said, we can attend to it physically mentally, psychologically. We can attend to the disposition of mind.

[20:33]

Desire objectifies. And the object is like a lightning rod for the energy of desire. And the more it's fed, the more alluring. And then the very activity of desire has within our psychological makeup a certain significance for us. We associate it with other experiences of desiring and yearning. Maybe we associate romantically. Maybe we associate in a more... social way.

[21:41]

We touch our sense of loneliness. our sense of belonging. And all of these, of course, can be captivating. In a moment, the world that we've constructed holds us mesmerized in its construct. And yet when we attend to it, when we start to see Oh, this interacting with this brings forth this, and when this is energized with the tension and engagement, it blossoms like this. We start to see the building blocks of our reality. We start to see the nature of consciousness. And this...

[22:46]

And the Heart Sutra says, this is the study when practicing deeply prajna paramita. The seeing the workings of the nature of consciousness. How we put the world together. And then we respond to the world we put together. And then we have a response to our own response. And when we see it, we see the hindrance is no longer an unexamined, solid persistence. As we start to see it, we start to see through it.

[23:54]

As we start to see how it fits together and inter-bees, we start to see liberation. And so the challenge for us is, in those moments of intensity where we're adamantly constructing a reality, can instead of feeding it and being enclosed within it, can we train ourselves to notice and experience? what it is that's going on in that moment. When we have a strong emotion rather than being mesmerized by the world that emotion creates.

[24:59]

A couple of weeks ago I was having dinner with someone and we were chatting away about many things. And then one topic came up And I noticed as we talked about it, my emotions about it got stirred up. And I'd thought about it several times before in a more matter-of-fact way. And as my emotions got stirred up, I was becoming more convinced by my own opinions about it. And I thought, isn't this interesting, you know? If I have a strong emotion, my opinion must be right. And then, of course, as soon as I started to see it, it was a whole lot harder to be convinced that that was indeed the case. In fact, then I became sort of, I marveled at how amazing the mind is.

[26:14]

You think about it several times without emotion, then you think about it with emotion. And suddenly, that's the game changer. This is not nonchalant. This was not a nonchalant affair. This is a very serious thing. And of course, the seriousness of it was because how it applied to me. And what's more important than me? And then you see it and you think, really? Haven't I heard that somewhere before? So the turning point, it's can we, in those moments of heightened energy, that are heightened by the workings of our very being, you know, in those moments of heightened energy,

[27:20]

rather than being swept away by it, can we return to the source? What's going on? What's being experienced? What's the mental constructs of this? What's the emotional territory of it? What's the physicality of it? And as we do that, who we are and what we are and how we are starts to become apparent. And then we can start to respond rather than react.

[28:22]

I'm having these ideas, and I'm having these emotions, and now what? What's an appropriate way to relate to this? There's one Buddhist text that says, as we engage this interbeing, as we engage then it creates the capacity and the possibility for intentional response. When we're caught in reactive mode, despite our good intentions, despite our sincere endorsement, of the Dharma and its admonitions, the capacity is not there.

[29:37]

And as we start to experience shunyata and allow it to be an influence, we start to create the capacity for intentional response. And something like our own innate goodness. This morning I was addressing a number of people who are starting to work at the Zen Hospice. And I thought, how amazing that they would be moved to work with dying. what goodness is in their hearts? That in all the things they could do with their lives and all the demands upon them, this is what they're drawn towards.

[30:42]

And I was thinking, I think in some ways we're all just looking for an excuse to let that goodness come forth. And in the sutras it says, As we loosen, the capacity for this comes forth into paramitas, the patience, the kindness, the diligence, the involvement, the effort, the concentration, the comfort. And as we engage this process... This was just the first half, but... Oh well.

[31:51]

As we engage this process, We start to see something that's more worthy of our trust when we see ourselves going through the stuff we go through. There's something more worthy of our trust in that than getting caught up on our stuff and just acting it out or reacting it out. There's a reassurance. There's a reassurance in the sense of agency that starts to come up when the capacity to respond rather than react is engaged, is brought into being.

[32:58]

Very interestingly, we give over to this process. We don't create it. It's in our being. And we give over to it as we engage the particulars that arise for us in our human existence. workings of the mind are no hindrance. And in that absence of hindrance the innate fear that arises. The deep fear am I ever going to be in control of this world? Will I ever figure out how to get it just the way it ought to be? How else can I be fully alive if I haven't crafted the appropriate way the world should be, the way I should be, the way others should be?

[34:27]

There is within that paradigm a profound dilemma for us. And Dogen's energy says, when we engage the process, we forget. We forget that existential dilemma. How can I make the world the way it needs to be for me to be fully alive? And if I can't, How can I live? And as this process is given over to, the fear starts to dissolve. The world becomes our ally.

[35:42]

Not in its perfection, but it's in its imperfection. And not because it's all sweetness and light, because in many ways it utterly breaks our hearts. The many tragedies and atrocities that happen every day. There they are. Desperate people, grinding, just trying to escape atrocity. Just wanting to be able to lie down without somebody attacking them. as we engage the process, we discover yes, that's there.

[36:52]

There's no denying it. And yet, in the middle of that, there is the nobility of the human spirit. And the great tragedy is that the perpetrators of those atrocities in their clinging are cutting off the nobility of their spirit. And so the agent of Prajnaparamita is Avalokitesvara, the embodiment of compassion. Even though we start from this self-centered place, it takes us into the world.

[38:04]

It creates 10,000 hands and eyes. It sees and hears and responds. doesn't respond because it's desperate to fix everything. It responds because really compassion makes the most sense. As much as we can say the agent of compassion realizes prajnaparamita, prajnaparamita reveals that there isn't any response that makes more sense than compassion. So let me end with... The other version I was going to talk about was...

[39:22]

It's true, if you open your window, you run the risk of the world coming in on its own terms, not yours. But if you open the window, the world supports you. You know? There's more to being alive than what we think. The world we're constructing and trying diligently to preserve. Ironically, we're also creating our own limited being in the process. Sometimes those moments of opening or simple, you know.

[40:39]

Some leaves landing on a roof in the patter. Had I not been awake, I would 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 and it came and went so unexpectedly and almost it seemed dangerously returning like an animal to the house it had its own fierce way of being its own wild way of being it seemed dangerously returning like an animal to the house A courier blast that there and then lapsed ordinary.

[41:43]

It had its own authority of being. It had its own identity, its own suchness. A courier blast that there and then lapsed ordinary. but not ever after it wasn't permanent it wasn't ever after and not just now it set something in motion it rolled into the next thing Dogen says and the awakening this spark of awakening sets the stage for the next experience. Maybe you hear the patter of the leaves, and then you smell the blossoms.

[42:57]

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.

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