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 hate to spoil this part. It's called the silence before the sermon. This readiness to touch something real. But that's my job. So I will.

[01:01]

Good morning. Thank you all for coming. Thank you, Tim and the City Center leadership for the kind invitation for me to come over the bridge from where I live at Green Gulch Farm Zen Center, Green Dragon Temple. Come on over anytime. It's a beautiful spot. And I'm grateful to be intimate also here with City Center and to be invited today to church. So I want to welcome everybody. If there's anybody new today, welcome.

[02:05]

And all of those of you who I don't know, welcome. And my old friends, it's nice to see you. Welcome. And you might find this to be so yourself. Once you start welcoming, it's kind of nice. So you can keep on welcoming. Welcome. Welcome to whoever's outside listening through the door or walking in the street. Welcome to this light. Welcome to the sound. Welcome to everyone, of course, online joining wherever you are, whenever you are.

[03:10]

Welcome to this sensation in my body. Maybe you have some sensation in your body that you can join me in welcoming. There's some joy in being together and turning towards the Dharma. That's welcome. And maybe there's some sorrow or some fear. Maybe there's some little animals in here. It seems like a very well-attended place. But maybe there's some little animals in here somewhere. They're welcome. Welcome this fluttery heart. How about you? What is there to welcome?

[04:17]

Is anything not quite welcome this morning that we should give a moment to? That sensation, that right shoulder thing? Okay, welcome. That little bit of gripping in the belly? Okay, welcome. and we remember that whatever it is, it's welcome. Does anybody want to offer something to remember, to welcome now, to bring here? Is there any resistance? I was thinking of the cries of the world. The cries of the world, thank you. All of that suffering outside that we feel inside. So I've been teaching Zen for, I guess, some time.

[05:48]

And this morning I was wondering, well, I often wonder if AI could do this job of teaching Zen as well as any of us could. And I was thinking this morning, really, you know, and we've tried it sometimes, and sometimes it's kind of impressive. Because AI is impressive, but also because our teaching is like very simple. don't need a big system you could just have a one line you know whatever you input it outputs it's welcome i i sometimes think maybe you know i think my wife thinks that um it'd be good to do something else occasionally too welcome but i feel when i'm interacting with people in the dharma i'm talking to students really mostly it's And we remember that that's welcome.

[06:52]

This struggle is welcome. Yeah, but this problem is welcome. But no, maybe I didn't explain. It's welcome. What else do I really say? What else do we really say? What else have I really heard as a Zen student that's encouraged me? So we remind each other, hey, is it welcome, this thing that I'm feeling or thinking or meeting in my life? And we tell each other, yeah, it's welcome. There's room. There's room. And of course, when we welcome whatever we welcome, we then can respond.

[08:02]

We welcome some response too. Opening our heart and our eyes and our ears and our obeying to whatever's here, then there's some responsiveness that's welcome too. This is one of the ways that we practice love in this tradition is to just welcome whatever it is. Welcome means I'm not trying to fix you or interfere with you or manipulate you. It's just welcome. There's room. So one of the ways that we practice welcoming is like this.

[09:12]

Think of different things to welcome. You could have a long list, an endless list of things to welcome. And it's worth welcoming each detail of our life. Each detail of this moment. Opening, allowing, welcoming. There's also a practice that we have in Zen of welcoming everything all at once. You don't have to have a long list, this endless list, and all the little mice, and all the birds, and all the people, and all the feelings. We can welcome everything all at once. There's a wonderful Zen saying, or instruction, which is to swallow all the water of the great river in one gulp.

[10:23]

This is maybe one or two ancient stories. And one of them, Laman Pong, asks the great Master Matsu Paso in the Tang Dynasty something like, How will... What's it like to be really free? What's it like to be really free? To really be not separate? And Matsu says, in the story I remember, Matsu says, I'll tell you. Are you ready? I'll tell you. I'll tell you once you swallow... all the water of the great river in a single gulp. And in the story I like, Layman Pong says, I just did.

[11:29]

And then Matsu says, I just told you. So sometimes, you know, we can notice what is there, what thing is there to welcome in. That's what the mind wants to do. That's what the mind can do. It can identify different things and welcome them in. But this embodied, open belly wisdom also has this power to welcome everything all at once. So right now we can welcome this whole field of our life. Just the whole experience of being in this room together, having a body and a mind and a heart.

[12:34]

There's just this one brightness this one field of being alive, and it's all welcome at once, all the water of the great river in one gulp. You still resisting anything? Anybody? Is this doing a little something? What can we open to? What can we welcome? Can we trust that? Everything included. part of the secret of this practice is that before you welcomed anything, everything already was totally welcome.

[13:53]

So you might think, I'm very gracious. Look at me welcoming someone. Look at me welcoming this pain in my body, this emotion, this thought, this light. I just did that. I welcomed it. Wonderful. It's a wonderful little practice we can do of opening and welcoming. But of course, everything that's here is totally welcome already before it even occurred to any of us to welcome it. We're all inside this welcome. As we do, if you'd like to take up this practice of welcoming everything or anything, you might want to think of it as a kind of ceremony

[15:15]

or gesture, or participation, or little tiny gesture towards the way that everything is welcome, actually, in this livingness, in our life. If something were to stop being welcome, it wouldn't be here anymore. Everything needs everything. Everything is invited already. Everything is held by everything else. Nothing is extra. Nothing doesn't belong.

[16:18]

We sometimes, you know, when we try to welcome things one at a time with our mind, we may worry that, you know, if I welcome one thing, then I'm going to lose something else. Do you ever have that feeling? I think maybe you might have that feeling. I think it's a common feeling. When we're resisting something, the feeling is, well, yeah, sure, but if I welcome that, I'm going to lose something important. Like if I welcome that big pain, you know, it will crush me. Or if I welcome you, then what about me? I might get lost. Or if I welcome, you know, if I welcome this grief, then I'm going to lose my joy. Or if I welcome my desire, then maybe I'll lose my composure. or my precept practice.

[17:32]

If I welcome my hatred, then I might lose my love. Do you know this kind of feeling? Do you ever have this feeling? Or do you completely trust that there's room for everything? You can welcome everything. There's so much room already in reality, and we can join that room And there's room for everything. Everything is this whole river of brightness, and it's all welcome. Nothing's pushing anything out. This is when we welcome with the belly, with the intuitive wisdom of the body. So I've been studying, some of you know, and practicing this teaching called Silent Illumination, which is a practice of being still and welcoming everything, being still and swallowing all the water of the great river in one gulp.

[19:14]

It's just being still in the middle of the brightness of... This practice of silent illumination was expounded in the Song dynasty. And one of our great ancestors, Hongjir, was a teacher of this way called silent illumination. And when our Japanese Soto Zen founder, Dogen Zenji, went to China to encounter the Dharma and to bring Zen back to Japan, this was the practice that he found was flourishing in China, this practice of sitting in stillness and openness. In this silent illumination practice, there's these teachings like... To just be utterly still, like a burnt-out stump on a hillside.

[20:24]

To be empty and still. And then to open, and all of the brightness is just right there. It's just present in that stillness, with that stillness. Everything is included. Nothing in this kind of meditation practice is not about making some adjustments to your mind or to reality. The meditation practice is just about being still.

[21:27]

and open, and then everything is just present as it is, and bright, and alive, and awake. Hongzhi says, silent and serene, forgetting words, bright clarity appears before you. Everything is welcome, and you do nothing with anything. Have you ever practiced such a thing? To be silent and still and open to all of light and all of sound and all of sensation.

[22:29]

If you practice such a thing, you might think, this is so cool. Everything is alive. I'm just sitting and... Everything is manifested and bright and alive. It'd be okay if we stood up. Let's stand up for a moment. I want to show you something. It's rather warm in here, would you say?

[23:42]

Okay, here's my four-point plan for a fulfilling life of ease and joy. Are you ready? Okay, first, put your hand on your lower belly. Okay, this is the root. This is the ground. This is the intuitive wisdom. This is, as Suzuki Roshi says, this is the main office. This thing is the branch office. Have you heard that one? He says, this is the branch office. It can send some memos now and then, but it's not in charge. This is the main office. He says, this thing, it doesn't know what's going on. It's making its list of things to include. I heard about welcoming everything. Okay, let's do it. Let's welcome...

[25:00]

It doesn't know what's going on. This, the belly center, the main office, knows what's going on because it doesn't know anything. It just is with everything. So this is our ground. This is the root of the posture of the way of being that supports this welcoming. So if you want to practice opening and welcoming, you need to understand what supports it. So I'm sitting here, I'm talking about welcoming, and we're sort of falling asleep. And it turns out that welcoming everything takes a little more than just having that idea like, oh, someone said it'd be good to welcome everything. There's a body and a mind that needs to align in order to make this experience of welcoming everything into the utter empty stillness actually... embodied and alive. So here's the posture that supports that welcoming.

[26:04]

And it's good to do while standing because this is a prep posture. Once this starts, I'll warn you, once this starts, you might not ever be able to turn it off. Okay, so if you have the courage. So, okay, grounding in the belly. So breathing out with your hand on your lower belly. Just feel that low belly center. My teacher in Japan would punch his lower belly. Only point here. So you can do that. Some people rather just put their hand. But feel that low belly. This is who you are. This is where you are. Okay, that's the root. So I breathe out. Feel that low belly center. Okay. And then breathing in. Raising my spine. Upright spine. Suzuki Roshi says, hold up the sky with your head. This upright spine.

[27:09]

Just like, if you really do that, it's a little scary. It's like, okay, I'm here. I kind of actually belong on this earth because everything is putting me here and I'm going to take up the space that I'm given in this body. I am welcome from this welcoming, from this belonging. I can say, hey, we're all welcome. You're welcome too. The light is welcome. The sound is welcome. So upright spine, this is so important in our practice of welcoming. It's too much to say so, but if you can study this in your own body, if you don't have an upright spine, you're probably not welcoming. If you've been welcoming, like really solid welcoming, and then your spine, you know, maybe you can keep welcoming for a few seconds while your spine is not upright.

[28:16]

Ultimately, you know, once we're established in the welcoming, that everything is welcome, but there is these conditions that make that really accessible in our body. So upright spine. And part of this upright spine is that the chin comes in. A student asks Suzuki Roshi, you know, how do you stop the mind in zazen? And he says, oh, just bring the chin in. And that lets the mind know that it has something to do in this project of being upright. He says when... When we start sitting or standing in presence, the mind feels kind of left out, so it goes for a walk. But bringing in our chin, we're calling the mind back into the body. Okay, so upright. Breathing in. I use my hand to help me raise my spine, support the sky, bring my chin in.

[29:29]

Now let's clear the mind. It helps if the mind is totally clear. So we can wipe the mirror of the mind by breathing out and focusing on our breath. And I like to do this with my hand, bring my hand over my face and close my eyes. And breathing out and just completely joining my concentration, my mind with that out breath. Suzuki Roshi says, perfect calmness of mind, the perfect stillness is beyond the end of the exhalation. So you can just, for this reset, just bringing your hand down over your face and then bring maybe your... Thumb and finger together as you breathe all the way out.

[30:38]

Single point, concentration on the breath. Your eyes can be closed. Okay, did you clear your mind? No thought in the mind? We have a complicated, I can say more about our complicated relationship in Zen with not having any thought. But if you study it in your body, it's really nice. We don't have to make thoughts the enemy, but it's really nice to not have any thought for just a minute, you know? What a relief. Okay, so we empty all the thought. Okay, let's do that again, because it's nice. Breathing out. Okay, now inhale. Open the eyes and open the arms. And welcome everything. All of this brightness. But there's still no thoughts.

[31:42]

And the body is upright and open. And then, this is the crazy thing, then you can go to work. You can go to work with this mind and nobody will know that you're completely empty inside. You are just upright and empty and you will be functioning. You're able to function. This is the faith that we cultivate by trying it out. You think, no, you don't understand. If I'm going to the staff meeting, I need to have my mind cluttered with all the stuff. If I'm going to, you know, be meeting with my family, I have to like remember their names and stuff. But you just step forward into your life with this clear mind, upright spine, grounded belly. You don't know what's going to happen. But everything is welcome.

[32:44]

Do you notice that? Maybe we can sit down. I don't mean to keep you standing. You can actually do these four things anytime. Like in a bathroom stall or something, if you don't want to call attention. And in our sitting, this is how we take care of the welcoming mind and body and heart. And we can do it with our hands, with these gestures, or we can just do it in the stillness.

[33:49]

But if you'll try it with me again, there's something so important that we can encounter again and again. So with your hand on your belly, as you sit, breathing out, feeling that low belly center. Then breathing in, encouraging the upright spine, whatever that means for your body. For many of us, the chin in. Raising the spine with that inhalation. Then breathing out. Just bringing all of the mind into nothing but this out-breath. As the fingers come together, finger and thumb, empty mind, then breathing in, opening the arms, inviting this whole field, and then coming into the mudra.

[35:03]

When I arrive at this place of welcoming in a clear mind and an open, upright body, I feel like I would like to live here. Does anybody contact anything through that exercise? I feel like I would just... I would like to just... I'm actually confident that... living my life from this posture would actually help everyone and would have joy and ease and intimacy. And so I sometimes say, I vow to live in this way forever. And then a few minutes later, I wake up and I have no idea where I've been.

[36:31]

Or it collapses. Like already now, maybe if you touch something through that exercise, is it still the same? Is that opening posture, is that posture still present? Or did the welcoming collapse? I've gotten really interested in studying this because there's no problem. I could just have this open, welcoming body, mind, and heart all day long, right? Theoretically. But it keeps collapsing and constricting. Why does it do that? The main thing that I notice, the first thing that I notice that collapses this welcoming is just scattered, wandering thoughts.

[37:44]

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.

[38:12]

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