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. Okay. But I thought we might as well... Is it working now? Yeah. What did you do? It awakened. The process of awakening is mysterious. We wish it were linear, predictable, and the product of our intentional activity.

[01:06]

But in many ways, our intentional activity is the starting place of a journey that unfolds. And in many ways, persistence with the unfolding is how our path is followed. So if you could right now stand up. We're going to do a four-part meditation, by the end of which you'll awaken. Sure. Whether you realize it or not. If you could just gently shake your body, just to kind of loosen up. Come to a standing posture.

[02:11]

Noticing physical being. As if you didn't know what it was to have a body. That is the physical sensation of having a body, of being a body. Not so much the names or labels you give it as the actual experience. your mind is saying, oh, that's tingling in my fingers. Beyond the words, within the words, what's happening?

[03:25]

And then sit down being body, staying connected to body, slowly and deliberately lower into your seat. noticing the physical difference between standing and sitting noticing the physical experience of this posture And then when they see them noticing attention, noticing how the body breathes, noticing the physical experience of breath, where it registers in the body.

[05:50]

Does the registering stay in one place? Does it move around? does it register with the inhale? How does it register with the exhale? And now noticing all the sensations of the senses.

[07:17]

Any sounds, any smells, taste, touch, sight. not to go searching for them, but noticing whatever arises right here. trying to inhibit or suppress thinking.

[08:36]

Thinking happens just another activity, another sensation, another object of noticing. And now noticing without any agenda. It can be the body, the breath, the sound, the thought. Whatever arises, to notice, experience.

[09:45]

Thank you. If I may ask, and may you dare to answer, did you find that easy to do? Difficult to do? Somewhere in the middle? Somewhere in the middle? What makes you say that? offer some description of what was happening that would Puzzling.

[12:03]

That was really puzzling? Interesting. It was interesting to feel what it was like to be in the body. Yeah. Yes. to articulate? That's okay. I mean, we're taking something and translating it into another language. We're taking sensation and translating it into concepts. So, not necessarily an easy thing to do. And sometimes in our own inquiry, to inquire almost like without language, which is not an easy thing to do.

[13:31]

Sometimes the translation is not easy, and then sometimes the nature and the content of the experience are not so easy. As our attention becomes more astute, we notice actually that the object of attention can move quite quickly. You might notice, well, I'm sort of hearing a sound and I'm sort of feeling my body. It's almost like they're happening together, but maybe not quite. Anyone else? Easier than Zazen? What's the difference between that and what we just did in Zazen? I have a lot more self-judgment than Zazen.

[14:38]

Oh, OK. And is that a good thing? Okay. Yes, please. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Sometimes the novelty and support of someone guiding our attention, you know, is helpful. whole name of this temple, beginner's mind, you know, that kind of the freshness, the novelty of stimulates something for us. And then our attention wanders, and then so the simple activity gets another layer to it, noticing that it's wandered and returned.

[15:52]

to the simplicity of noticing, letting it resume something that's essentially innate, simple, without an agenda. But the momentum of habit energy is hard to let that subside for a sustained period of time. But we'll get back to that. Thank you. Anyone else? Yeah.

[17:00]

I thought you'd be awakened. What do you associate with being awake? Wide open. And what happened? When you did the little... Made you feel sleepy. Made you feel sleepy. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. Anyone else? Yes. Just a second. I had a kind of an oscillation between observing you in the field or observing what I was thinking. and then dropping into the thought, or dropping into the field. I could feel the floor against my feet.

[18:06]

And sometimes I could be . But a second later, it would be just lost in the discomfort. It would be observing, it would just be feeling. It wouldn't be any abstraction. I would observe myself thinking, And a second later, I wouldn't be observing myself. You might just be off in the box. Yeah. Right. Yeah. But with a continuity of awareness that that process became evident. So what was noticed was a little bit more complex. or maybe a lot more complex than just sensation. It was like what was also being noticed was the movement, the response to the sensation, some of the quality of the attentiveness to it, and then how it moved around too.

[19:14]

And it's a little bit like letting the noticing be wide enough that all of that's held in the field of noticing. rather than thinking, okay, well, this is noticing, and if it goes outside of it, that's wrong, and it should stay in. Well, how about we just widen the field and let it be whatever? So, in the Zen school, this is called objectless awareness. There's no fixed object. It's just awareness of any object and all objects. Sometimes in other schools it's called bare attention, choiceless attention. And then there's a formulation that runs through the meditation schools.

[20:17]

And it's sila samadhi panya. What is it that supports... practice of noticing the practice of engaging experience the practice of being present the practice of waking up what is it that supports it and then what is it to do it to be it samadhi can be translated as continuous contact and then what is the realization that happens when that practice is inactive what is the realization that happens when we step out let it fall away the narrative

[21:23]

that constructs the world according to me. I noticed the sensation in my feet. Well, actually, there was a sensation. It was labeled a certain way in the food, associated with a thought, my foot, associated with another thought, I'm noticing the sensation in my foot. The experience is drawn into the context of the world of me. Or not. The process of noticing, experiencing directly is like an invitation to experience something outside of that, to experience something that isn't so tightly or compellingly defined within the terms of the world according to me.

[22:43]

And as I was saying last night, the world according to me has both The momentum of habit energy, habit energy has the tendency to repeat itself. It's a habit. If you walk from here to the door, most likely you will walk habitually. In the Alexander Technique, the teacher said, okay, walk backwards. It's just to help you. loosen up how you habitually work. And sometimes, in different practices, that's part of what's being introduced. Let's get you out of your habit energy. Let's send you off to a mountain monastery where you don't have your cell phone or your email and all those other things that are essential to modern life.

[23:53]

put you in a schedule you're not used to, have you behaving in ways that you don't habitually do, and then you'll be freed from your habit energy. And you'll both feel the relief of being freed from your habit energy and the pain of being taken out of your comfort zone. And this is part of the territory of practice. As I was saying last night, there's both something enlivening, liberating, and then something uncomfortable, something disconcerting. And usually when we do it for a snippet, a couple of minutes, it's not so hard to stay mostly present. And it's not such a big deal, you know?

[24:56]

I mean, if you thought, okay, we're going to do this all night until 5 o'clock tomorrow morning, well, guess what? In about 10 minutes from then on, or maybe two, three hours, if you're more used to this practice, it would become a very challenging and difficult thing. So part of it is about habit energy and psychological conditioning. But those are only two aspects of the human condition. And it's hard to sit still. It's hard to sit in one posture. After a while, your body becomes uncomfortable. Even more interesting is to start to sit and pay attention to your body, there can be impulses to move.

[26:08]

Maybe as simple as a wish to scratch your cheek. Or maybe as mysterious as your hand twitches. Or maybe as simple as In that posture, after 15, 20, 30, 40 minutes, your back no longer feels comfortable and the muscles or whatever, the ligaments, tendons, start to hurt. So all of these arisings in the world of being Buddha, in the world of continuous contact, They bring us back to sila. Okay, well, what way of relating to this conditioned existence is skillful in terms of supporting awareness practice?

[27:18]

This is a helpful way to come at it because if we come at it and say, okay, what am I supposed to do? What am I supposed to comply with? What am I supposed to impose upon my being? Then it has a kind of burden of conformity. Stop being yourself and be something else. Be what you're supposed to be. Whereas really, sila is about the skillful involvement in conditioned existence that sets the stage, that supports the vitalizing practice of being Buddha, the vitalizing practice of being awake and present and engaged in what's arising in the moment. how to engage the body, the breath, the habits of body and mind, how to engage our psychological makeup, how to engage how we use the body, how much exercise and rest we get, how much we eat and drink, how we use the mind, you know,

[29:04]

And then in formal practice, like if you go to a monastic setting that's structured, it's kind of interesting. I was just talking to someone today, Gil Fronsto, and we're going to teach a retreat together. So you have Western Vipassana, which has some structure, and then other things are unstructured. And then you have Zen practice, which has more, interestingly, more external structure and less internal structure. Like I was kidding Gil when I was saying, well, are we going to ask people to sit in straight rows or can they just like sit in the old crazy way? Are we going to ask them to sit with nice straight bags or are they going to sit on their cushions just any old way?

[30:16]

Within the spirit of Zen practice, whatever and however you engage sila, that it's done with this notion. Is this supporting energy? Is this supporting the process of awakening? Is this supporting the process and the capacity to notice? So that's what I'd offer you for the next week, to notice. And it can be as, I was going to say mundane, but I don't know, tangible, as how much you sleep. Maybe you need more sleep, Marsha.

[31:30]

Maybe you're a little tired. I remember once listening to Thich Nhat Hanh, and someone was asking him about falling asleep in Zanzen, and Thich Nhat Hanh said, maybe you should go to bed. I was like, what do I do when falling asleep in Zaza? He said, maybe you should go to bed. How much you sleep, how much you exercise, how much you eat. And of course, there's a way in which sila, the way I'm talking about sila, assumes that all our behaviors are intentional and conscious, which of course they're not. There's many things we say to ourselves, oh, I'm going to do that, or I'm not going to do that. And guess what? We end up doing it.

[32:33]

But that actually, in the process of waking up, can be helpful because If you say to yourself, okay, I'm going to eat this much, and then you don't eat that amount, you skip that meal, or instead of eating that amount, you eat twice as much. The intention to do it one way helps you notice what you do do. and you start to see where intention comes forth. Where resolve plays a role. Where discipline plays a role.

[33:40]

So when we start with the metric of awakening, it's like the practice builds up around it. Okay, what is it to just notice what's happening? Okay, what supports a conditioned existence to just notice what's happening? Okay, well, given those admonitions and given the habitual conditioned being that I am, how do I relate to that conditioned habitual being? in the service of appropriate actions of body, speech, and mind. Does that make sense? So it isn't the subject of an external morality of saying, well, this is good and this is not good. It's more within the process of awakening.

[34:44]

just came to mind was Suzuki Roshi where I read he said sometimes you follow the precepts you follow the path of awakening by breaking the precepts and of course you have to be careful because it could be a wonderful excuse to do all sorts of things Really, it's about following the path of awakening. Don't get stuck in conformity. Another aspect of sila is noticing... your energy?

[35:54]

In particular, your mental alertness? When you do a task, at the end of the task, is your alertness enhanced? Is it depleted? Does your brain feel foggy and agitated. There's a phrase in Zen that says, do you use the 24 hours or are you used by the 24 hours? It's a wonderful notion. And it's an important one. With diligence and sincerity, you can say, okay, I'm going to take up this aspect of sila.

[37:04]

But you can take it up, and then you can struggle with it. And then you can tire yourself out. And you can take it up and assume that in some way it's about conformity. and then your practice is sort of wooden. And one of the ways you notice this is, you're sitting there, you're counting your breath, but you're actually, in some ways, doing everything but counting your breath. You're thinking about this, you're thinking about that, you're fantasizing that, you're reliving that discussion. And these can be indicators that we're trying to impose something upon what's happening rather than remembering that it's about awakening to what's happening.

[38:14]

So within sila, within discipline, within that which supports awakening, There's this metric, there's this gauge of noticing. Is this supporting awakening? And if not, what's that about? And how to trust ourselves, how to trust our own involvement in the process. that helps us to notice it on Saturday we're going to do a ceremony called entering the way the very start of the ceremony it says trusting we're Buddha we enter Buddha's way something in this knows what it is to be awake

[39:21]

And it's a little bit like the more we return to that, the more we engage that, the more we exercise that, the clearer our own knowing becomes to us. Or maybe you could say the more clearly we remember it. So this is very much the spirit of Zen practice. We're returning to an original state. rather than remanufacturing something that wasn't there in the first place. Any questions or comments about all of that? Yes. Yes. Patience comes up in relationship to agitation.

[40:47]

Am I trying to force something? No? Am I trying to impose a notion of what I think should be happening upon what is happening? Am I trying to resist what's happening? So both those, that kind of agitation and disturbance, can point towards patience. The not knowing is a trickier one, in a way. But not knowing becomes trickier and becomes an obstacle when we bring forth a goal of knowing.

[41:54]

in contrast to bringing forth an aspiration of discovery. Okay, well, what is happening? I mean, noticing is not invite, have I created the right outcome? Noticing is, well, what is happening? In some ways, not knowing is an ally of noticing. And knowing is maybe a way of undermining noticing. Yes.

[43:05]

Well, so what I was saying, put it in other words. When we draw it into a cognitive process, like when we're figuring it out, I'm not sure whether reading this much is a good thing or a bad thing. and then we try to figure it out. Or we say, I'm not sure. How do I feel? What do I notice? What is my state of mind? So if we can return to the simplicity of exploration, in contrast to figuring it out. Which is sometimes a tricky thing, because a lot of what we do is figure things out.

[44:08]

I did. Well, what I was saying was that... No noticing. It has occurred for us regularly throughout our human life. And we've created around those direct experiences all sorts of formulations and understandings and responses. But that noticing has been the source or the inspiration for all of those. And so it's like returning to the essence, returning to the source. It's like when you watch an infant and you see how alive they are in terms of their senses and engaging and exploring the world.

[45:21]

And this experience makes them shine with happiness. And then with this one, they immediately start to cry. But five seconds later, that can be totally gone. And now they're curious about the light shining in the window. Then noticing, you know, after a couple of months of being alive, we're in on it, you know. And that's what I was... And then earlier I was also seeing There's something in us as we release the agitation and preoccupation of our being and return to a more open and simple and grounded state. The integrity of being comes forth too.

[46:30]

I mean, we don't become violent or dishonest, you know, or other ways, you know, those are the products of our agitation and distress and fear. They're not the products of our settled, simple, confident being. So this notion of original state Right effort and intention. Intention? Intention. Intention, yes. We have the intention. Uh-huh. We need to apply right effort. We go to another teacher, Vipassana. Be ever diligent.

[47:36]

Be very diligent. Be very diligent. Right effort. Yes. Yes. Okay, so how does one balance that? I'm so intense. My intention is so strong and I'm turning into a solid block of stone. Yes. And sometimes I can catch myself feeling it, feel it in the shoulder. You sit for 50 minutes and then afterwards, oh my god, I was so diligent and attentive that I got muscle cramps. Yes. So how is the balance? How does the balance? Yeah. Well, I would say something like this.

[48:36]

In theory, we're talking about refining our effort. We're talking about effortless effort. That noticing has no agenda. So it doesn't require this gritting your teeth and blasting your way through. In practice, that's a theory. But in practice... In practice, sometimes I think it's good to expect yourself to do everything but effortless effort and have an extraordinary patience and a sense of humor with yourself. and a great sense of forgiveness. Here I go, I'm going to do everything but this simple, effortless presence and noticing. And how come I'm going to do everything but? Because I have accumulated over this human lifetime all sorts of habits, all sorts of...

[49:46]

ingrained behaviors you know how do i usually go at things well i usually run at them head on and smack them with my head or or i usually you know i usually look around for somebody to blame for why i'm having a problem or i usually criticize myself and then feel discouraged and sad And then can you notice that? Oh, look at how tight my shoulders are. And it's almost like, can you forgive it? Can you forgive yourself for being a conditioned existence? And can you forgive other people? who you might think well you know if my parents have done a better job I wouldn't be this this would be a whole lot easier maybe so yeah but in the entering the way ceremony trusting that we're Buddha we enter Buddha's way and then this

[51:18]

One part, the next part is about honoring the teachers. And then the next, I'll come back to that. And then the next part is avowing karmic life, acknowledging it. All this ancient, entangled, interwoven karma from beginningless human response. Your parents are to blame. They're your parents. And their parents are to blame for them. And the people that were involved in your formative experiences, in your development, they're to blame too. And the society you lived in is to blame. And the geographical location, that's to blame too. And this era in the development of humankind, that's to blame too. What if we'd been born 400 years ago and life would have been so simple and easy?

[52:19]

And we're all to blame for what we've done to each other. It's this great web of interconnectedness. And we're all part of it and we've all contributed to it. This is what it is in Buddhist practice to avow or karma. Because in a funny way, when everybody's to blame, nobody's to blame. Who are you going to single out? You might as well get upset at all six billion people on the planet. And I do. Well, there is that, isn't there? And then somehow, as Dogen Zenji says, and the enlightened are enlightened about karmic existence.

[53:44]

In some ways, it's more skillful to think, okay, I am going to do everything other than effortless effort. Noticing is exquisitely simple. Now watch me make it incredibly complicated. It's like, just start with a low standard. And then you'll meet your expectations. It's something about avowing our karma. And then more suddenly, it's something about willingness to be the person you are. And something about forgiveness. No? This is who you are.

[54:51]

For reasons you know and for reasons you don't know. For manifestations that you're awareness and manifestations that you're not aware. This is it. You have notions of what it might be to fix it, improve it, or change it. But they're still just notions. The enlightened are enlightened through the process of noticing conditioned existence. That's how we discover the path of liberation. We discover the way we grasp and cling and avert and get confused by why it's not what we think it ought to be. So if you could think and notice this week tangible things like how much movement helps your body to feel more alive.

[56:23]

Do you feel more energized? when you eat more or eat less. And then you can try subtler things. When you engage in activity, do you feel drained after it or do you feel energized? And are there certain activities that drain you? Are there certain activities that energize you? When I go to this kind of meeting, I come out of it feeling like, okay, I'm ready to go back to bed. When I come out of this kind of meeting, I'm just like raring to go. I've got five new things on my to-do list, and I love them all.

[57:33]

When I talk to this person, I come away feeling heavy. When I talk to this person, I come away feeling lucky. And not so much talking about pleasant and unpleasant, but there's that too, right? There's pleasant experiences, there's unpleasant experiences, but more about how do they stimulate awareness? Do they nurture it or do they dissipate it? Yeah, again. Do you?

[58:46]

Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Well, what happens then? So then if we introduce the notion of sila, conduct that stimulates, supports, creates the capacity for, what would be sila under those conditions? Okay then. How much would you love to know?

[59:49]

Because here's the interesting thing. If you'd really love to know, it would be like, I can't wait till this happens again because I'll get to explore it. I'll get... Notice it. Feel it. Experience it. Stay aware in the middle of all of that. Can you see how... There's a kind of a wonderful... It's a very interesting point to bring up because in one way there can be this kind of innocent curiosity. I don't even know what that would be like. This is going to be an amazing discovery. Or there can be... I don't even know what that would be like. I am so frustrated. I am so just fed up with all this. I'm so fed up with me being me. I just wish it would stop.

[60:55]

Yeah. Yeah. Right. So, good luck. Yes. But it seems to be emphasizing something that's often emphasized in Buddhism that I don't yet. We talk about karma as completely the responsibility of the person. Wait a minute. Did I say that? You didn't say that. Oh, OK. OK. Okay.

[62:03]

It's not true. It's more not true than it is true. Yeah. So what I emphasized was interdependence, right? And then I emphasized how the, you know, I said, well, we can blame everybody, right? But what I was saying underneath that was, and this is not easy for us, you know? Lovely and all as it might be that it's interdependent. carries for us or often brings up for us a certain difficulty, a certain sense of struggle or pain or disappointment or whatever.

[63:08]

And everybody's to blame. And in some ways, what I was saying was, everyone's to blame. And then the curious thing is, when you realize we're all in it together, blaming everybody and blaming nobody, rather than being polar opposites, they're almost like they just come together. We've got all the blame. There's good reason to say we could do a better job with all this. And yet... the human condition. When we avow our karma, it's not to bring forth a sense of shame and guilt or a sense of hopelessness.

[64:16]

It's actually about acceptance and forgiveness. And then, no, let me finish this notion. Then, within that, that really helps us to start to see the agency of the notion of a separate self. You know? Within that, I formulate a notion of me and what I'm doing and what I'm not doing and, you know... how I'm being harmed by others and helped by others and how I'm harming others and helping others because that's how I think and that's how I feel and perceive the world. But if it can be held within that acceptance and forgiveness, it's always more tolerable.

[65:28]

And also, it becomes a teaching about the human condition. This is how I formulate the world. These are the persistent patterns. I mean, that's what we discover when we do Zaza. This beautiful, simple awakening process of effortless effort, of just noticing. And then... You know, you see amazing things go on in a sincere engagement in that process. It seems like it's anything but simple. It's anything but effortless. It's anything but illuminating. So what were you going to say? Well, I guess I'm kind of just curious why, besides... The thing about reading about that is not that I have a problem accepting my home, but I'd like to feel like I can affect other people's karma.

[66:43]

It seems like that's the most valid reason to want to practice and be aware, especially when I'm Sheila. Well, both this evening and yesterday evening, too, I'm trying to say The skillfulness of practice has come from the premise of Dharma rather from the premise of karma. If we say there's a human tendency within the ground of interconnectedness to individuate, to separate, then the process of individuating and separating is just something that happens. But it's not an absolute truth. When I say my karma, I'm really just talking about how things come up for me. It's not an absolute truth.

[67:44]

It's a notion. It's a way I formulate the world. It's a way I navigate being alive. But it's not an absolute truth. It's just a construct. And as much as I can construct it when it's seen clearly for what it is, ceases to exist. So if I insist on staying within my karmic construct, then I need to work out existence in terms of my karmic definition of it. And that's not possible. I'm not that powerful. So that's an important point, is that we make that shift.

[68:48]

Last night I was saying, you make the shift, you make the shift, you make the shift, and gradually, as well as suddenly, that has more plausibility. the world of Dharma, the world of interconnectedness, just as it's experienced more, it becomes more of a plausible proposition for reality. As long as we keep reinforcing the karmic definition, well, then that stays as the dominant definition. As long as we utterly invest our energies in feeling it, acting as if, Well, then that truth, albeit relative and karmic, persists. So sila is to adopt awakening behavior. To behave as if interconnected existence was what it is.

[70:05]

Yes. that I have to bear my own life and that nobody can do it for me. My own life? Yeah. Your life is separate from other lives? My past, my family, the things I've done, the events that have occurred, those. What about them? The consequences of them. that are here now? Your past, your family. And those are just examples, just all the events that... Yeah. I was just trying to understand and appreciate your definition of my own life. same intention to investigate this the media this idea of being an adult and for me that's something I could think about two of the past couple years and the idea of just like standing out directly in the spot where I am and saying this is me and this is what I have to be like these are the things that are here yeah is very is that it actually like invigorating and giving more sense of

[71:49]

power is a little power, but like, like, I can, there it is, I can do this. Then diffusing it or thinking it's... So, okay, so I'm just putting that out there to see how these ideas go together. Well, here's how they go together in my mind. Um... The world we formulate is powerful. We formulate nationalities and then we go to war over them. We formulate different identities and then we love each other and hate each other and act out both of those.

[72:52]

There is power and consequence to our karmic life. This is what we bear witness to when we do zazen. Even though it is simply a construct, it's an incredibly powerful construct. Even though it's just me saying, my family or my beliefs or my identity. That can be extraordinarily powerful. So it's not that it's whimsical unless that's how it's being related to. But the very noticing that power, noticing how conviction and grasping of karma has profound influence, and noticing that that's a construct is how we discover and realize the path of liberation.

[74:23]

You could say, well, I'm from this city and you're from that city. People in my city hate the people in your city and feel a deep mistrust and aversion towards me. Or not. You could think, well, you're from this city and I'm from that city and it's irrelevant. What city were you born in? What's the name of it? Euclid, Ohio. Are you serious? You're all from Ohio? Good then.

[75:33]

So I guess that makes it to you best friends, right? Do you feel any different knowing that this person is from the same city as you? Positive or negative? Positive. Well, of course positive. But you can see how it's also arbitrary, right? I mean, you might think... Euclid, Ohio, I couldn't wait to get out of there. The people there, they were the meanest, nastiest people in the world. Can you feel positive too? Yeah. So did I. Yeah. But it's all made up too, right? I mean, it's like... No, it's not.

[76:39]

But isn't the made-up stuff precisely our suffering? Exactly. Yes. Exactly. But when we look at it from the ground of Dharma, it's... There's a... teaching in the fact that this coincidence that you both came from the same, is it a big city? But how many people live in Euclid? 60,000? 50,000? That's not so big. That's kind of... Yeah, what a coincidence.

[77:40]

And you just down the road. Amazing. And yet, when it's held with a certain spacious mind, it has a kind of playfulness to it. And you can say, oh, yeah. And now I feel a little bit kind of closer or more approving or somehow positively inclined towards this person. How quirky life is, you know? And this other person, I have no idea where they grew up and I'm kind of more neutral or maybe even a little more distant. And yes, that is my karma. But when it's held with the ground of Dharma, my life, my well-being, my liberation, my awakening does not depend upon the particulars of my karma.

[78:55]

You're not buying that one? You're not. Does your well-being depend upon whether or not you were born in Euclid, Ohio? If that were a source of suffering, which actually sometimes, if you go from Ohio to New York City, as I did, you'll figure some nasty comments. So it became an identity issue, actually. That's that issue. And then it became a source of suffering. So then getting to what Well, being did depend on working with that. I mean, so that's an example of suffering. But I see what you mean, that there's like the other, it's like two things coming to meet each other. The one side where you have to go through your particular and your suffering, and the other side, and that doesn't depend on this.

[80:07]

But getting through this does depend on whatever it is and its particularities and working with it skillfully, right? The particularities are illustrative of something. The enlightened are enlightened about karmic existence. It's kind of great. We can all be amused and charmed. It's kind of fun to see you're both from the same small time. I don't know why, but it's kind of like... It's like it's good to hear. Like, oh, really? And look how close you're sitting. Amazing, you know? But it's not... But we're also holding it lightly, you know? It's not like none of us are shivering, you know, feeling a little bit ashamed that we're not, you know? I must be less. I'm going to keep that a secret.

[81:08]

I'm not going to let anybody know I'm not from Euclid, Ohio. There's no social convention right now here that says, if you're not from there, you're not really a real person or something. It's just a quirky... So when the karmic details are grasped... and turned into more than just karmic details that's the suffering no when the grind of Dharma is there the capacity to just let the karmic details be the karmic details and put it in kind of Zen Buddhist language when there is Trust in our Buddha nature.

[82:09]

Trusting that you're already Buddha, we enter Buddha's way. So whether you're entering from Euclid, Ohio, or New York City, or San Francisco, or wherever, it's a karmic detail. It has its own particularities. New York is not Euclid, Ohio, and it's not San Francisco. they are all part of karmic existence. They're all illustrative of conditioned existence. And when we cling to something, when we are forever diminished by the fact that, well, I was born there, and something in that, diminishes us, or this aspect about ourselves. I'm wearing a gray t-shirt, or some story that you tell yourself about who you are or who you're not, or who someone else is or who someone else isn't.

[83:18]

Of course, this is all karmic details. This is all conditioned existence. And we're not in control of it. We didn't put it in place. We just contribute to it. and we have responses to it. When it's illustrative of conditioned existence, it's teacher. When we act as if our happiness, our well-being, our awakening are thoroughly dependent upon the details, then we're caught up in it, and there's no escape. There's no liberation. And noticing is the starting point, the ending point, the middle point, the process of continually returning. So I'll give you some handouts, two cons just for your edification.

[84:29]

One, maybe a little bit obvious, this very mind is Buddha. Keep coming back to now. Keep coming back to here. Keep coming back to this. Affirm it just as it is. Not because it has some special attribute, not because it reminds you of Euclid, Ohio, or anywhere else. It is what it is. This moment, this feeling, this physical sensation. And then the other card, maybe... your mind a little more teacher says to the student do you trust the process of awakening the student says whether I trust it or not human activity can't diminish it or make it more and we'll email that to you

[85:36]

How will we get it to you? Wow. Smoke signals? Okay. Thank you very much. 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.

[86:22]

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