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. I was thinking yesterday that this time is a time of change in the practice period. The light shortening and the dark gathering.

[01:01]

Temperatures somewhat moving in a cooler direction. It has been notable to me having led the last three practice periods I led were in the winter. And you enter, you plunge in the winter, whether you like it or not. And whereas the fall in some ways is more kindly. You know, it sort of takes you gently by the hand, offers you warm afternoons and after-dinner light and opportunities to sit in the courtyard and chat. And now, I just said chat.

[02:09]

and now can we can we turn with the turning this delicate proposition of practice you know last night I was talking about the disciple and discipline yeah we came here to give ourselves completely to the practice sort of yeah we came here to give ourselves completely to the practice and you know Maybe have a few coping strategies in the middle of it.

[03:11]

And will we set them in opposition? Will there be some struggle we'll have with the forms, with the procedures, or the admonitions? Or some struggle we'll have with ourselves. Oh, I know I shouldn't, but I'm going to. Whatever that is. Some little shingi you've made for yourself. I'll not eat any chocolate during sushi. And then you do. So there's a delicate but important point for us as we're beginning.

[04:23]

How do we align our intention with the admonitions in a way that's not in opposition to our karmic life, to our conditioned existence, to the persistent habits and feelings and thoughts that come up? How can we cultivate and bring that resolve that holds it all and actually is willing to look at the dynamic, at the interplay of it all? How can we bring forward for ourselves Chutra says and nothing to retain the Bodhisattva dwells in Prajnaparamita with this not conjuring up our own version of what should or should not be this deep dedicated commitment

[05:41]

Paying attention to how it's unfolding. That this is an amazing opportunity. We can study the self. We can bring to it an attentiveness that will help us see more clearly the workings of our being. in so many dimensions. What it is in sitting still to let something drop, to drop more fully into the belly of being. What are the subtle yogic details of the breath breathing the body, rather than the mind instructing the body to breathe the breath?

[06:50]

And in the realm of mental activity, what is it to stay here and let past and present come here? Bringing with them, you know, the tragedies, the dramas, the deep yearnings, the love lost that they carry within them. And what is the workings of resolve that each of us in our own way can thoroughly and heartfeltly say yes. This is what I'm about. I am about presence. I am about being awake.

[08:01]

I am about attending to what comes up. about realizing the path of liberation yes I have all my stuff and undoubtedly it will present itself sometimes as a whisper and sometimes as a commanding roar Okay then. Sometimes a whisper, sometimes a commanding roar. Because there's an amazing way with that heartfelt commitment is an incredible support to our practice. When liberation is contingent upon satisfaction of our karmic needs, it's a great dilemma.

[09:20]

The world, life is not obliged to behave the way we want it to behave or to stop behaving the way we want it to stop behaving. vow, the resolve, it sets something in motion. Of course, as we engage the techniques of practice, probably everybody in this room has had the good fortune to savor the energy of settled concentration. relief from mind and emotions complaining about what they want and what they don't want.

[10:27]

Every one of us has squirmed in our seat. Distraught. the dawn has forgotten to ring the bell. How could this period be so long? It's already been 100 years. This mysterious human capacity with a certain attitude. So what? So what? Occasionally there's a period that lasts a hundred years and you know for sure your legs gonna fall off. So what?

[11:39]

Occasionally the mind can get swamped. murky and confused so what the moments of clarity and energy and ease are impermanent and that's so what like a weight settling down into the belly of our being with a certain authority. So it is. So it is this human life.

[12:40]

So it is this conditioned existence. gave me this poem at the start of a practice period. It's by William Stafford. It's quirky. Today, outside your prison, I stand and rattle my walking stick. Prisoners, listen. You have relatives outside. And there are thousands of ways to escape. Years ago, I bent my skill to keep my cell locked. Had change smuggled in in pies. And shared my escape plans with the jailers.

[13:48]

But always new plans occurred to me. Or the new heavy locks bent the hinges off. Or some stupid jailer would forget and leave the keys. Thus freedom always came nibbling my thoughts. Just as often in light on the open hills, you can pass an antelope and not know and look back and then, even before you see, there's something wrong about the grass. And then you see. we've made the heroic journey to here. Yes, I will. Of all the choices, I make this one.

[14:49]

Of all the priorities, I choose this one. And yet, some ambivalence, reluctance, some hesitancy, to include it, not to try to push it away, not to try to overcome it, depress it. The very aliveness is what supports our practice.

[15:52]

Our yes, I will, and our reluctance. How could some part of us not be part of practice? Every part of you wakes up except your left arm, your right ankle. How could that be? It's the inclusion. It's the interplay. We start to see the attributes of shinata. Nothing's permanent. This sense of self, this world according to me, this past and future that I am so inclined to conjure up

[17:15]

Nothing needs to be comforted, exiled, overcome. The request is extraordinarily simple. What's happening now? Nothing's excluded and nothing's demanded and nothing is grasped or averted. And something in his nose completely

[18:25]

the wisdom and compassion of this. When we let it register, it rattles through our being. The tensions in our body soften a little or a lot. conflicts in our mind. The yearnings and the bitter disappointments. Such is a human life. This is what we bring to the cushion.

[19:30]

We don't bring some pristine 16-foot golden Buddha. We bring a human life. Quirky. So as we begin, this great journey of Sushi. Whatever agendas, fears, avoidances, dedications, So be it.

[20:41]

We take our Dharma seat with them all, not to spite them, not to banish them, with them all. Because awareness with human consciousness is intrinsically subjective. Human consciousness participates in the created experience. Saying yes to what's happening opens the door experience trying to be something that's not happening there's no end to it there are many there are endless things this moment is not

[22:07]

And such is the nature of our imagination and yearning and version. We can create a steady supply, but the contact, the experiencing of being with its affirmation, with its energy, with its clarity, with its authenticity, with its compassion, its wisdom, its healing power, is absent in that making the moment what it's not. So we bring forth yes, and then we bring forth the request of practice.

[23:20]

Be what is. The good news is we're fully equipped. We're already ourselves, so being ourselves is pretty simple and doable. Possibility. And yet, such is the human condition. At her's breadth deviation. And we're pretty good at her's breadth deviations. In fact, sometimes we're pretty good at missing by a country mile. What was I thinking? And Dogen Zenji says, and this is what all the Buddhists, all the ancestors, this is what they practiced.

[24:38]

Being what is. Realizing the moment. Sometimes I wonder if all these forms we're creating are something of a destruction. You know, Dogen says, before Baha'u Inchanting Buddha's name, be it what is. then we learn the chanting Buddhist name bowing offering incense offering flower petals or Yoki is the direct expression of being others because until being what is is actualized before it's brought into engagement in the moment

[26:00]

It's just kind of abstract notion. Some sweet thought we can reflect on in quiet moment. Practice is asking us to be what is beyond thinking, to be what is beyond knowing, to be what is both in the self and beyond the self. To our logical mind, that doesn't make any sense. But those two are intertwined. The self we conjure up is just part of everything. It has no fixed ground.

[27:01]

It has no independent being. As we enter in, as we actualize, it becomes a wondrous art. There is no formula that will make it fit within some predetermined parameters. The mind is not of that nature. This actualizing all-inclusive the very nature of our unruly being brings forth endless teachings of course in our efforts to control it's all a problem no

[28:29]

What's happening now? And in this background, dissolve, so be it. What's happening now? Yes, I will. And it's non-dual. It turns out the way it turns out. There's no right and wrong about being yourself. I'm being the wrong me. This isn't the real me. The real me was yesterday. During personal day. And this is an important consideration because then we take up the duality of actualizing.

[30:02]

We pay attention and engage intentionally as we bring the bindless mind into the particulars of the forms. the interplay. The interplay between the non-dual it just is what it is. And the dual. We do it a particular way. And where this becomes literally crucial in Shashin when you engage technique technique has a particularity to it and in this issue i am going to get into the particulars of technique and the danger is it starts to feel like there's a prescription and there's success and there's failure

[31:23]

There's articulars, there's engagement, and then there's whatever happens. You know, as Dogen Senji so rightly says, without the practice, it's not realized. We can take these ideas and say, oh, that's so wonderful. But until we engage them, until we start to experience them, something isn't realized. Something doesn't appear in the realm of experience and isn't metabolized by our being. It stays remote. It's when we experience it and realize it, it becomes part of us.

[32:38]

We become part of it. And the technique helps us in this regard. The habit energy has the characteristic of perpetuating itself. Intentional involvement helps us to not simply stay inside the swirl, inside the confinement. As William Stafford so playfully puts it, I stay inside my prison. picking up new ways to do it. So we engage the habit energy intentionally.

[33:43]

And we need to keep in our mind and heart the non-dual proposition. It has nothing to do with success and failure. It's about sparking awareness. It's about loosening up that which clouds awareness and facilitating that which brightens awareness. Doesn't that sound like a dualistic notion? Yes, but at the core, the engagement sparks.

[34:47]

What is it gonna spark? What is it gonna stimulate? Who knows? Now, if we take an instruction like, to the breath, the sensations of breath in the body. What will that spark? Maybe it will spark an emotion. Maybe it will spark a tingling sensation of energy in your solar plexus. Maybe it will spark increased mental activity. Maybe it will spark a silencing of mental activity. Non-dual disposition.

[35:59]

and any of those the expression of na. And this, this delicate, directed and receptive, directing attention, receiving whatever arises, this is what keeps the mind lively it's what stimulates the blue jay to make that noise okay enough the technique can become mechanical so you diligently

[37:07]

proceeding with the technique and then all of a sudden you realize you're totally off somewhere else when we're staying in touch when we're tracking the amazing characteristics of mind it's interesting you know what this mind can come up with is amazing can go in a flash. In the midst of our earnest endeavors, how we can have that impulse to cling to that glimmer of concentration. In the midst of our earnest endeavors,

[38:09]

how we can be lured into some trivial thought. How amazing. How amazing it is to be alive. And here we are. For those of you going to the kitchen, I'm just going to mention the chanting, the yoga, dhokusan, and that's it.

[39:11]

It's a good time to leave. chanting for those of you who haven't done a sashim with me before and I know there's many of you haven't and when we come back in the afternoon we will chant with the Nway Jukko Kanan Gil and hopefully it will be apparent we'll be chanted quite a bit for about 10 or 15 minutes with full body and breath and directed a

[40:18]

energetic directed attention somewhat more of the territory of Rinzai Zen than Soto Zen as far as I know opening up the body for the breath opening up the breath for the body being swept up and being nothing but body and breath Letting breath resonate in the body. This is, in our heritage, this is implicit in our chanting style. There are particulars to it. The interesting thing, when you do it energetically, your mind doesn't need to know so much of the mechanics. And it'll become evident quite quickly what we're doing. um the yoga i'll offer a yoga session it's the notion is it's pretty much the same every day a little variation to stop you from getting bored but mostly to sink into a kind of quiet mind so there can be a flowing attention

[41:48]

the experience and that the stretches are not so demanding that they're straining you know they're straining to accomplish something that your body is not quite capable of accomplishing and then for those who wish And I know many of you have a well-established yoga practice, which may be more suitable for you, and that's fine too. And then for those for whom neither of those options work so well, we'll offer a walk up the road led by the shusup. A kind of a mindful walk that has more exertion than just kinhin. The overarching idea is a body practice in which the container of mindfulness is sustained.

[43:01]

And if those three don't work for you and there's something you'd like to propose, talk to the tantal. This is the general notion we want to create. And there may be an alternative that works for you that does that well. And I'm sure that will be receptive to those notions. And of course, as the Eno so rightly said, if you're exhausted. Now, what is exhausted? What is tired? What is appropriately tired? And inappropriately exhausted begin. Well, interesting notion. You'll have to figure out. But if indeed that's the most skillful and appropriate thing for you to do, so be it.

[44:06]

That's fine too. And even there I would say do it mindfully. Go back to your room. Try to avoid, oh, well, if I'm going to go back to my room, I should get some coffee and a peanut butter sandwich. I mean, no, just go back to your room. And relax, restore in a quiet, mindful way that keeps the container of sushi. And then in terms of tokusan, the plan is that we'll just sit for the first couple of days, so we'll all sit together. It's a powerful thing to do, you know, body to body.

[45:22]

There is a way in which we inform and support each other's zazen body to body. There's a way in which that settling, that becoming part of the body of Shashim. our yes I will restores and removes our resolve there's a mysterious way we tap in to not only to the part of us that deeply is committed to this practice but we also tap into the part of us that

[46:33]

that knows the appropriateness of this way of relating to a human life and as we sit and we settle together the great gift of Sangha is settling in that way together and we embrace the forms and we know Even in our diligent embracing of them, they're just mere occurrence. The mere occurrence of this time and place. As is what happens in our minds. The thoughts and feelings and images. As we sit together, our chanting harmonizes.

[47:42]

We breathe together. We become that one body of Buddha. And it's marvelous because it doesn't make any sense to our rational mind. But we feel it. It's palpable. Long after we've forgotten everything that was said, we'll remember the feeling. So we'll sit for a couple of days and then we'll have dogasana and practice discussion. And the dogasana, the practice discussion of sashim, you know, they carry into it what's happening now.

[48:46]

What's happening? How is it being related to? And what happens when it's related to like that? beyond success and failure, beyond right and wrong. The generous gift of awareness is that it includes, without judgment, Now, what we'll do is we will end, and then we will take a quick bathroom break, and then we will meet in the work circle area, and we'll do a period of outside communion.

[49:57]

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, visit sfcc.org and click Giving.

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