Somehow, as my mind was scheming about how to follow on from what I said yesterday, the word patience kept coming up. I remembered many years ago, Dana Weldon was my assistant in the city, and I was the abbot. And we were working on something, and she quietly said to me, you seem impatient. It was lovely. Just kind of slipped it in there. no idea what we were working on, but I remember her saying that in a wonderful way.

[01:09]

It's an interesting quality, patience, and it's an interesting quality, impatience. The urgency of getting something done. How could we not feel that with the schedule that goes from 3.40 in the morning to 9 o'clock at night? And yet, we could rush by what exactly is unfolding in the workings of our own being. How do we start to see our more subtle and sometimes our blatant way of distracting, avoiding, suppressing what's happening in the moment?

[02:34]

How do we study in the doing what it is to abide in the present? I mentioned earlier, you know, the shorthand way of talking about patience is simply a willingness to stay present for, or to use a stronger word, a willingness to suffer what's happening in the moment when it's unpleasant. If we open it up, we could say, don't avoid, don't turn away, stay here, stay now, then Open up.

[03:42]

Turn towards an experience. And maybe that turning towards is one of our most formidable challenges in practice. How do we counterbalance a lifetime of turning away, of distracting, of defending against? How do we turn towards it with alertness and aliveness, even when it's not what we want, even when it's not what we were hoping for, not what we were expecting, Continuous contact, when it takes hold, is marvelous.

[04:52]

As we all know. Even our little glimpses of it. It has an energy. It has an affirmation. It invites connection. And then the other moments, the other feelings, the other psychological constructs that come up for us, it's almost like they do the opposite. They invite distress, disturbance, disconnection. How do we turn towards under those circumstances? And sometimes in the teachings, you know, Sometimes they're very practical and methodical. Start off, just make contact any way you can.

[05:57]

Just connect to the body and the breath. That marvelous home base of stabilization. And let that invite a stabilization, a calming. But even so, even if we could persist in that marvelous endeavor, that compassionate way, still Something about practice is asking us to venture right into the territory of being fully who you are, living the life that you're living. Hakuin rebuked the notion of just staying in the realm of

[07:14]

calmness and settledness he said it's like a ghost living in a cave it's just a safe version of yourself which is not really that safe because it's avoiding so to turn towards to train ourselves when something arises. If we can train ourselves when something arises with energy. As I say, I don't remember what I was working on when Dana made that comment, but her comment brought a pause where I could say, yes, I'm seeing the world this way, I'm emoting in relationship to how I'm seeing it, and I want this to happen.

[08:24]

And probably I had myself convinced that, well, I'm the abbot and this is very virtuous and appropriate. Whatever storyline we've added to it that makes it thoroughly appropriate. And sometimes it's obvious to it and sometimes it's completely opaque. But either way, can we train ourselves to turn towards it? And I would suggest to you, as we abide now, in the paradise of Sushin in this beautiful valley in this spring weather a little cool at night a little warm in the day what a wonderful opportunity to invite ourselves to engage

[09:47]

a willingness of continuous contact that's not of our own making, our own volitional making. Well, obviously, we participate in its making on a fundamental level, but we don't often intend it. In a fierce way, awareness is inviting us into a relationship that we've never been apart from. And patience can be this turning catalyst. Instead of mediating, curating, the moment experiencing it just as it is and the odd wisdom that those moments that were most likely to turn away because in relating to them something unpleasant arising those are the moments that offer us a a unique opportunity

[11:19]

Yes, we need a fortitude, a resilience, a steadfastness. But the human experience is such that even if we could craft the perfect conditions for meeting the moment, it would just be momentary. It wouldn't last. to turn towards to experience and to learn. And sometimes the learning is cognitive. Oh, yes.

[12:24]

Now that you mention it, I do notice I have a feeling of impatience. Sometimes it's systemic. Once I was sitting at Rinzai Shishin, and in that tradition, we were chanting the Enmei Juku Kanengyo first thing in the morning. So we'd do that for about 20 minutes, and then we'd have a delightful, of Omoboshi tea, very salty, soothes the throat, and then we'd sit. And I remember my body and my mind were energized. It was alertness.

[13:30]

And I could experience in what turned out to be quite painful detail that even though my mind was sort of calm, there was a rumbling that was incessant. Didn't even turn into words. Just had this kind of incessant disturbance. Low level, but incessant. Calm it, brought a kind of agitation. Don't turn away. Don't fix it. Meet it just as it is.

[14:35]

And rather than you tell it, it tells you. It's always a very simple notion we've all heard probably hundreds of times, but can we take this opportunity to engage it thoroughly? Can you become curious, deeply curious about seeing the inner workings of what you are as we go through the day. And here's a poem which to my mind relates to this. I hope it does to yours. It's by William Stafford.

[15:43]

If you don't know the kind of person I am, And I don't know the kind of person you are. A pattern that others made may prevail in the world. And following the wrong God home, we may miss our star. For there is many a small betrayal in the mind, a shrug that lets the fragile sequence break, sending with shouts the horrible errors of childhood storming out to play through the broken dyke. And so I would appeal to a voice, to something shadowy, a remote region in all who talk. Though we could fool each other, we should consider, lest the parade of our mutual life is lost in the dark. For it's important that awake people be awake, or a breaking line might discourage them back to sleep.

[16:49]

The signals we give, yes or no, or maybe, should be clear. The darkness around us is deep. Stafford was a conscientious objector during World War II. Somehow, that poem reminds me of that. people should be awake. But since we're not talking, we can come back to that after Shashin. But can that awake part of you be awake? Can it discover fundamental inter-being nature of being alive.

[17:59]

All this is relational. And something deeply ingrained within us is to create a separate self. And to tell ourselves something about it. And what is it to settle? What is it to pause and quietly listen and feel and notice? What is going on? There was an image made popular in Zen in Japan about 300 years ago.

[19:11]

What were you before your parents were born? Okay, you have a lifetime of conditioning and you've inherited lifetimes of conditioning. But even so, can something in you be quietly awake Can something in you naively and innocently ask, what's happening? Can something in you notice that when there is something coming forward with energy and persistence, to turn towards it, rather than let it define reality that you should live within. But to just be itself of that moment.

[20:17]

And I'd suggest to you that yes, you've known that notion a long time. But maybe now is a time to know it more thoroughly. Maybe now is a time to engage it more thoroughly. When Dana said that to me about being impatient, it wasn't just a momentary thing for me. It felt like, oh, Isn't that how I live my life? With a certain note of impatience. I like that and I don't like that.

[21:28]

And usually hold someone else for the experience, responsible for the experience I don't like. I watched myself once get annoyed that something someone did something I didn't like so I got annoyed there they were that moment the fruit of a lifetime of conditioning flowering as it did and I didn't like it and I got annoyed And somehow seeing it like that, the usual trajectory that that would create dissipated.

[22:37]

The curiosity about my own conditioning. curiosity about what is going on for that person. The almost embarrassing observation that the most important thing is the world according to me and everybody else should be compliant with it. the time we're mediating our life all the time we're creating observations judgments conclusions in the midst of the support the sangha

[24:04]

and the structure is giving us. Can we attend in that way? Can there be mad patience? Can we notice what it is to not turn away? Can we notice what it is to turn towards, to experience? And then intriguingly, as we turn towards it and experience it, it starts to shift. It starts to shift and then sometimes it resurrects the authority of its discomfort and its disapproval but sometimes it doesn't sometimes it turns the other way and we just see it for what it is and there's a kind of forgiveness that arises we forgive the person

[25:31]

for being the fruits of their own karma we forgive ourselves for being the fruits of our karma and responding the way we do we see the deep wisdom of staffords You don't know the kind of person I am, and I don't know the kind of person you are. So let's pay attention and discover. Let's pay attention and inter-be. And when that comes up, the patience invites us into interbeing.

[26:39]

And then when we contrast that with the search for purity of cutting off all attachments, we can start to see that even though we haven't perfected our non-attachment, there is a way we can inter-be in harmony. We can also start to see that as we live this way, something becomes more alive. As the moment tells us what's happening rather than we tell it what's happening.

[27:55]

And in a more cheerful note, Stafford wrote this. Your exact errors make a music that nobody hears. Your straying feet Find the great dance, walking alone. And you live in a world where stumbling always leads home. Year after year fits over your face. When there was youth, your talent was youth. Later, you find the way by touch where moss redeems the stone. And you discover that music begins before it makes any sound. far in the mountains where canyons go, where canyons go still as the always falling ever new flakes of snow. So maybe today, this second day of our second sushin, you can explore what it is to be the person you are in the life you're living and the people you're living it with.

[29:41]

in this valley, in this world. Then notice in particular, in moments, what is it to turn towards it? What ways I tend to turn the other way. And when I turn towards it, what ways do I tend to contract? Does it express itself in judgment, disapproval, annoyance, fear, distress? discover more about my own workings can I discover more about the workings of being human how we all go through our version of that

[31:18]

When it's interrupted by the large dark eyes of a young deer. What a blessing. When it's interrupted by the early morning sunshine. call of a bird that you haven't heard before. Can continuous contact in the samadhi it invites, can it be all-inclusive? sense would it make if it only included part of what we're capable of and not other parts doesn't make sense to know as much about the workings of our own being as possible

[32:52]

this precious opportunity right now, today. Can we persuade? Can we coax? Can we remind ourselves of how precious an opportunity this is? discover the more subtle workings of human consciousness you and art your exact errors make a music your straying feet

[34:05]

find the great dance. You live in a world where stumbling always leads home.

[34:13]

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