One-day Sitting Lecture

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SF-03518
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summers
the money
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that

well it's a beautiful spring day
and we got to listen to the birds this morning as they woke up and saying to us into the world and there were so many different sounds so many different birds this morning ah was listening to
most of most of these sounds i i wouldn't be able to identify or say what kind of bird that was but i may have a very familiar green gulch in
sound to them
and i was reminded of the story of the buddha when he was a young boy
and he heard a bird sing
and he had a joyful feeling hearing the bird but he could feel or a sense the terror that the insects and the worms were feeling when they heard that sound
that beautiful trilling
ah song of spring
to another creature is you know
like air raid siren or some terror comes to
now this may be anthropomorphic for sizing in a in a way but actually there is no set reality that is true for all beings
ah
what's beautiful to human beings may be ah scary or dangerous or risky for another kind of being
and this is this truth of our life ah
if we bear this in mind compassion arises for for all beings
and if we hold to our point of view or what's right for us
we forget we forget

so this spring time is it feels to me like a big transition time for a lot of people
ah some people have talked with me about becoming parents they're about to become parents which is a big transition and other people including myself are about to lose
children into the big wide world graduation is coming up my daughter's a senior at tam high school
and will be
most happily flouncing out the door to her next adventure
and some people have recently lost
ah parents event will be doing a memorial service for teigen layton's father who passed away couple of days ago many if you know him
and some people their parents have become like their children are due to illness and
loss of
faculties they've become the parents of their parents just a big transition to begin
a new relationship changing diapers of your parents
and people have talked with me about starting relationships beginning to wear
ah feel commitment towards someone if they may want to really young put lots and lots of effort into a relationship and other people are talking with me about the end of a relationship that they put lots and lots of effort in
and on mother's day they were
there is wonderful news of a baby that was born to the saga indigo basil is this name born at home next to san center
ah a wonderful birth
mother and everyone doing fine and that very same day mother's day
a baby was born
and died in childbirth this baby is and are ultra baby hawthorne
who was parents were married here
and
ah that baby girl died on mother's day
in the effort of coming into this world known exactly knows why yet
so this is our human life
the joys and sorrows and sufferings
and our attempt to try and stop it stop the bad things from happening and ah find the good things
is are suffering
so transitions there's transitions going on big transitions some people are leaving zen center after being here and other people have just arrived in our
really taking on this practice and immersing themselves
the word transition means to cross over
to go from one state to another state
the process of crossing over
and we often feel when we're in transition
very destabilized and ah everything we look around it's unfamiliar our old ways of being in the world
getting along feeling calm don't work anymore or those that environment is as dissolved and the new the new is so unfamiliar and so difficult
it even if there's joy or sadness their the transition times can be destabilizing
and anything can happen during transition is a kind of dangerous time i think
you hear about people in transition losing now
losing touch with their own vows losing touch with how they want to live in the world and what's most important and beacon grabbing for anything that will
seem like a port in the storm
in places of transition like airports and train stations and bus stations have a kind of our
emotional
ah valence or ah
tone that's
anything can happen you feel that and you can meet anyone or anything could happen
when someone's out when a woman is giving birth and is in labor there's a time during the
the birth called the transition and
i don't think everybody goes through this but many women do and it's at the beginning of the labor if this is if you're doing natural childbirth and are awake and aware of what's going on
the beginning of the labour the contractions are coming they start out at a certain level than the they get stronger and the pretty regular space certain time apart that might get closer and closer well if you're paying attention you can breathe with it and watch it and take care of yours
self get into the pasture that works the best for you and stay with the pain stay with the strength of the contractions move moving a lot working hard and called labor really making efforts staying with it and then there's this time call transition
that's what that's what it's called maybe there's been other medical name for a but anyway and during transition it's before the time when you want to push the baby out that this time called transition and the contractions may be coming very fast or in erratic way and very strong
and all the breathing and the way you have been working before that they works anymore that you tried that that won't work how about this that won't work and it's that point
that if you're going to ask for drugs or something to dull the pain or get rid of the pain
rated transition is often when that happens when you kind of lose lose your way
so in natural childbirth classes they warn you they like they tell you about transition to be ready for it and not to ah
in necessarily on grab on to the first thing that you can think of to just get me out of this
ah i can't do this anymore
so are acknowledgement of transitions in many ways helps us to
ah reminds us
ah this too shall pass five you know encouraging us to find our way there even with tumultuous this big changes

so my son just went through a transition a couple weeks ago
his thirteenth birthday actually which is next saturday but his thirteenth birthday in the lunar calendar which is the hebrew ah
way of calculating dates
was on april twenty ninth and we had he had his bar mitzvah and for those of you who are familiar with the bar mitzvah it's a
an acknowledgement of a young person becoming an adult a bar or a bot mitzvah for girls becoming an adult in
terms of the religious life of
judaism and thirteenth birthday is chosen
now it's interesting
ah you know many young people at thirteen you would think baby art adult they're not really ready to take out the responsibilities of an adult
but it's right around that age for many young people that it happens in for for girls this is the time or their first menstruation so that they actually do become adults in the biological sense and i think that that
that age was chosen perhaps you know this is lost in
ancient history but i think it was chosen for biological reasons for girls but ah so you made us will have the boy stood at that time too
this is my theory
anyway
davey head as his bar mitzvah and
we wanted it to be a real a real ceremony a real transition something mean when i say real i mean meaningful the way that i feel all the buddhist ceremonies that i participate in have a
truth to them they're not just empty ritual where you go through the motions in the are ordinations and weddings and funerals it always feels to be like something there was a real gate that was crossed and passed through there is a transition from ones
state to another state and it was marked
and those of you who have
participated either for yourself or witnessed buddhist ceremonies may have felt that as well
maybe for the first time a ceremony really met you
that's when i feel about ceremonies are the importance of them for our lives and so we wanted this ceremony to be to have depth then meaning and that
that good stuff for him but it wasn't necessarily happening quite in that way
ah
and the the years the couple years that he spent studying hebrew and learning about
ah
jewish ethics and the teachings
although they were very important i could tell he was really can engaging with this teacher that he had an israeli woman whose wonderful lady
still the permits for itself this he wasn't looking forward to it and didn't really want to do it and why do why why are you making me know
and we my husband and i we really had to look carefully is are we force him is their coercion here are we making him do something that will actually which we've never done before in our life as a family forced him to do something
where he didn't really understand how come
so this was this was a
this was something we had to really look at carefully and at a certain point we said to him because i couldn't take this anymore and this kind of forcing that was going on that i felt
and there is it wasn't just that it wasn't just forcing because meanwhile there was a lot of interest in what was happening and surprise and delight in the fact that he we're at a passover ceremonies or service the seder and in his eyes got all wide and bright and he looked up me it i can repurpose he could read the hebrew and
and he was amazed so it was combination there was a lot going on there right at a certain point we actually said
ah if you really don't want to do this you don't have to do this
and we really brought it to him and and gave him some chance to say no i can't go through with this
and i think his knowing that he could actually say no and it but he didn't he actually said i am i agree there was agreement finally i want to do this he actually did say i want to do this but he said i don't want to say no so in some level he
he wanted to do it and he didn't even know i don't think at what level
so that i think was a big transition right there that maybe was the ceremony the priest ceremony the pre voice of the ten thousand and ceremonies was he's actually saying yes or not saying no
so then then we went from there and the actual ceremony itself was was wonderful everybody in the room had a relationship with him
ah and lots of family came in his grandparents and so there was a wide range of people in the room who were
appreciating his effort and appreciating him and who loved him
so i think it was a real ceremony because a real ceremony for the people in the room
and
i just wanted to say something about here to give a talk here to give camera a dharma talk for part of the ceremonies you read he learned hebrew and then you read it and chanted in front of everyone and then you give a little dharma talk about what you've just said in his particular portion was
that he had to learn in english was
about various rules about priests what the priests couldn't couldn't do and he didn't find it all that interesting but the rabbi helped him in talking about some other things that were going on
right at that time of year which was a time between two holidays the holiday symbolizing liberation and the holiday symbolizing
oh
i haven't got us a renunciation but it's got exactly that it's some
liberation and somebody remind me who is there
receiving
getting something
receiving the teachings so liberating yourself and receiving the teachings so we're right in between there in this transition between those two
and what he ended up talking about was this time of life for him as a young person he had to in order to receive something he had deliberate himself from certain old ideas and ways of being
and he didn't use the word renounce by to renounce or let go of and old way of thinking and being in order to receive the new
which is transition where you've let go of your old way
which may be can't have become habitual a routine way of doing things and thinking and treating someone you have to let go of that in order for this freshness to come into your life so you liberate yourself from the old and you receive the new
so he named three things he had to liberate himself from he had to let go of and one was liberating way so from the idea that i can get everything i want
and
i actually saw that as a kind of buddhist jam
for us to liberate ourselves from the idea that we can have everything we want which makes desires and grasping after things and looking for things a central makes it a central
the focus of our life
which is some saric life the
looking for something keep going after something trying to get something bring something into her life to make it better to make it okay or to change things or to manipulate things in a way that we like
the ball
the bodhisattva vows desires are inexhaustible i vow to end them
so he brought this up if i may if desires and the focus of my life there will be just and happiness because ah
by definition because we will always be searching for something more won't they'll never be any contentment so letting go of this ah and then he quoted a jewish saying the person who is happy the person was happy in this world is one who is content
with their lot content with that which comes to us but our lot is
and he also quoted and are just quoting his diameter a buddhist sandwiches just like a spider caught in its own web
it's a person who is
caught by desires you're just tangled and caught
so
so this is a very important point for our practice and life huh
it in fact
renunciation of our
ah
i'm calling it worldly way it's often called the world's the way renunciation with the worldly way is the beginning of our kind of dharma wheel turning in the other direction
where desires are not the focus of your life
but then what becomes the focus of your life
so
in transition sometimes at the height and these heightened times of transition we can see what we need to let go of weekend we can taste it
and if we sit
the were when we sit and we have a whole day to day together to sit
ah sitting upright sitting not leaning into our life not leaning away from our life sitting upright
we ah
we can study our lives and in studying our lives it's not that we have to pull things away from herself and throw them down in a kind of
you know harsh mean violent kind of way but are actually seeing what we need to just let go of seeing what's stale what too much what not necessary anymore what's hindering us what's getting in the way we can
let go but we have to see it
we have to study or life in order to see it
so are sitting today is maybe the ceremony of
steadying that which is there
that which is already there and ah what is arising
and the best way to study that is
with this uprightness of brightness of mind and body
now if you sit very very still and steady in this way steady that which is arising in mind and body and what one might say externally and internally
what you might notice as you're sitting calmly and very very still
is that
there is all there is his transition
you might during the first part of my doc you might have thought well i'm not in transition now i'm this is i'm kind of pretty stable and nothing major is happening but when you said you see that there's nothing there that's staying put
there's nothing there that you can kind of settled down on and get a hold of and say yes now i'm
ah now i got it if you look carefully enough and thoroughly nephew see it's a process
there's nothing there to hold onto it's just all transition
and this
this is the truth of impermanence
there's nothing there to hold on hold on to and as the such as as grasping things is basically dilution grasping it thinks is basically delusion
now
it may seem ironic that the more still you get the more quiet and the more settled in com you get the more you see that there's nothing that's
static or ah
still or staying put i guess i'll say staying put and that non-staining put this is completely still
that's kind of coming around full circle so so we start out with thinking
that time
well we actually started thinking that things are as they are in pretty permanent you know tables and chairs and people in our france in our life but very soon we see that nothing is nothing is ah a stable in that way in birth
death they are births there are deaths there are changes that we don't want their changes that we do on this is there's constant flux like this and certain transition seem more than other and in between those transitions we feel maybe things aren't moving very much but the stiller
we get a more calm get and the more we study our that which is arising we see that there is nothing to hold onto kind of going over this nothing to grasp and art delusive thinking is that there is something to grasp and we try to grasp it will
is suffering
and this impermanence or a constant flux
mrs kind of the the completion is completely still all of it the whole universe of movement and change is not moving is completely still
now my words may seem
kind of mixed up
oh and i think it sounds fixed up because there's i'm kind of putting together what we call the two truths the to truths so there's the conventional truth and the ultimate truth and the conventional truth is
birth and death gain and loss
likes dicks dislikes a censure and blame responsibility and no responsibility all that that whole world thinks that you liked the taste in things you don't like to taste that the world of birth and death than conventional conventional life
that we all understand and we all have to
pay pretty close attention to that or we get in big trouble
and the an ultimate truth which cannot be an object of our intellect
it can be an object of our perception ultimate truth because our intellect or perception and awareness is dualistic awareness by definition so with this dualistic awareness or intellect that we have we can't perceive the ultimate
by definition so it's it's something the ultimate is not an object of our awareness not an object of her intellect
but people can say something about describe
the ultimate
ah but let's not kid ourselves that we are actually perceiving the ultimate visit the to truth so the ultimate is that there are no
separate objects there are no there is no birth and death coming and going ah likes and dislikes within the ultimate those dualisms drop off drop away
in the in the buddha world there is no coming or going no increase or decrease
and out of this world buddhists appear to teach how to live and ah
teach the way
to end suffering
so

so our experience how the the ultimate and the conventional
our
interpenetrating interpenetrating each other so it's not like
somewhere far away and then all we've got our stuck with this the the conventional right here where the conventional is is interpenetrated the ultimate in fact that the way the conventional reality the way birth and death arise the way we understand self and other
or the way self and other of rise i should say
that very way that they are is ah
the ultimate truth meaning
each entity each dharma each object is not does not have inherent existence it is not
an object that exist by itself it is completely dependent interdependent with all other
with everything else
so each of us
we we tend to think of ourselves as separate selves that are separate from other beings which is the
which is are suffering which is or anxiety in our fear and are the basis of our desires the basis of breaking all of our vows and precepts is this belief in self another
and the ultimate truth points to the be in substantially of separate beings we do exist
in a way it's not saying that we don't exist but we don't exist as separate beings
so
you know when we look at transition when we look at the change in how things change what what to what i what occurred to me to days that in the transition itself in these transitions and process of change is the kind of proof
of are non separateness
if we were separate entities somehow if you can imagine a separate entity there would be no growth and no change and know
bar mitzvahs and no birth and death and know hi
no ah
development or maturity
we only mature and change because we are completely dependent on on everything else if we were somehow separate we would just be what we were unrelated to anything else so in our own transition and in the truth of impermanence is this demo reality of our connectedness
with everyone even are suffering we only suffer because we're so connected with other beings that it matters to us when someone dies when we lose someone
or when somebody we know is hurt that is our connectedness with them is are suffering
so
so in are sitting in our upright sitting
ha
we have a chance to steady this and i overheard somebody saying at lunch they had been at the practice period with red with tension or she and tessera and they said something about ah
don't activate the mind externally and i remembered his teaching around this which was
dharma teaching to his disciple quaker so but bodhidharma is the i'm our ancestor who brought buddhism from india to china and it's not that much that we have there's not a big long lectures and things that bodhidharma gave but we do have a few
things that he said in one of the
ah teachings that he gave teaching meditation teachings that he gave to his but waker was
when meeting external objects or objects
outside do not activate the mind do not activate the mind around externals external objects
and
there should be no gasping or sighing or sometimes it's gasping is translated as coughing know coughing or sighing or no gasping and sighing internally when you meet mind objects
just make your
just sit upright your mind like a wall
now when we hear this sometimes we think where do you mean make my mind like a wall like an unfeeling brick wall that has no emotions and know joys and i don't want to do that bad some i've had enough of living like that i want to live i want to feel i want to be a human being so don't make mistake
it's about mine like a wall mind like a wall is a mind that
ah bad
doesn't go lean forward this is why upright sitting is so important
both internally and externally uprightness of body and mind the attitude leaning into her life meeting tried to make it be how we wish it were get those people over there and stop doing that and manipulating manipulating means you know hands mani mani in to manipulate get our hands out there trying
to push things around the way we want it that's leaning in that's activating the mind around objects and then sighing and gasping internally as like i always think of it just like oh woe is me oh poor me i'm i don't have the capacity to to pray
cactus and and i'm just an old bump on a law or that kind of sighing and gasping that internal that kind of sinking mind around mine objects so mind like a wall is make your mind like a wall don't activate around externals and no sign or gasping her coughing or
an internal mind objects external objects when you meet them no activation so what kind of a mind is that that's mine that's a mind-body that's upright that's a wake that's clearly aware
and so wake i heard this and then it doesn't say how long between these conversations but one might think that there was some time that past where he said to bodhi dharma
i have no more involvements
referring back to this involvement in the externals and activating or internally i have no more involvement so bodhidharma said
isn't that
i never know how to pronounce this or nihilistic like i have no environments mean a cut off from not you know
not engaged or interdependent with isn't that nihilistic
and wake us said no and body have prove it and wake us said i am always clearly aware
there are no words bed can come near it i am just clearly aware
m bodhidharma sad down all the bruce and ancestors
we're like this have no more doubts
so these are
ah instructions or ammunitions for sitting i think are are very helpful very important for us
the having a mind like a wall means
well i invite you to find out what does that mean to not get involved externally or internally and yet be completely clearly aware this is not nihilists and this is that cutting away and not feeling and not allowing our emotions or sensations or sounds smells tastes tentacles
to arise somehow keeping them down at cutting them off this is
clearly aware and it's very hard to be clearly aware when we're leaning into our life and manipulating and trying to make it be how we want it is very hard to be clearly aware or leaning away and shrinking back and no no i can't stand it how it's hard to be clearly aware there
so that's where upright being a bright allows us to study
mine and objects so in says
the such this of mind and objects is the entrance
to a nightmare bull away
so are studying of the such nissa mine and objects not
not doing away with but studying how they arise in such this this words such this is some
if it's a name for the buddha or the awakened once that togheter is the thus come one
the way things are in reality the wave things
in such this so we get a chance all day to day to study such this the way mine and objects come together and to watch
ah i and notice are we leaning in are we trying to get away from make it be different or are we
cowering can we can we stay with with this approach feeling like a wall
beautiful wall
how can we stay with our own fears and anxiety discomfort boredom and just be clearly aware those very things that was very objects of mine boredom
fear anxiety if you can study how they arise how mind and objects arise in such this there's your entrance right there so none of those things need to be gotten rid of in order to wake up you can wake up right in the middle of your fear
right in the middle of your anxiety
what did they say that saying before the donkey leaves the horses come something like that it's probably miss misquoted anyway you don't have to get rid of anything you just have to study what is coming up for you what is arising without manipulating it are trying to
make it be anything other
so clearly i am always clearly aware said weaker
i always clearly aware
so this is letting go you know of our own ideas and this is beginner's mind i think ah

so let's all make effort today to take care of each other to take care of ourselves and
allow the city
to thus come

thank you very much
me or