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. Before you do anything else, just notice any agenda of changing. as best you can, as exactly as you can. What's the dominant experiences? Is it some thoughts? Is it sensations in your body? Is it emotions? And as you start to attend to them, outside remembering through doing what awareness is

[01:15]

in that awareness coming into a more attentive awareness of the body letting your spine lengthen front your body open shoulders widen and relax Your face relax, your jaw, your mouth, your eyes, your forehead. Awareness of the whole body.

[02:34]

awareness of the breath in the body. Watch the physical sensation of breathing in. Watch the physical sensation of breathing out. Not trying to suppress the sign of the motorbike. In a way, just letting it be part of awareness of breath.

[03:45]

expanding with the inhale receding with the exhale and with the inhale allowing whatever arises to arise whatever is noticed just be and with the exhale non grasping Not making a big deal out of it.

[05:03]

Not getting carried away by it. The next inhale. What's next? What now? Maybe simply body, might be a thought, memory, an image, strong emotion. thank you you know there's a way in which the process of awareness the process of Zazen the process of being the moment doesn't change you know what changes is

[07:40]

the capacity to attend to it, the capacity to engage it, the capacity to be immersed in it, the capacity to realize what the experience is exemplifying. So in some ways, process of zaza and the process of awareness is this wide open but exact involvement in what's happening now. And so each time we initiate a sitting, that kind of deliberateness, this stream of karmic consciousness.

[08:51]

We're not trying to cut it off. We're right in the middle of it discovering awareness, experiencing it without grasping. Okay? Now that you're all awakened, the Dharma will flow. Any questions about what I just said? I'll take that as a positive sign. Any comments about how you've been practicing with what's been coming up in the class over the last week?

[10:05]

Yes? I go back and forth. You talked about not suppressing the non-willing chatter. Part of me is focusing on my breath to not suppress it precisely, to not have to listen to it. Yeah. Because I think of listening to it. Yeah. Which I believe is a constant with not suppressing it. It's simply what we have to pay attention to it all the time. Yeah. Awareness is a shift in... what's being what's arising is related to know that's that's a significant shift you know you usually we have habituated thoughts feelings and we have habituated responses to those thought feelings it's a little bit like oh here I go again you know here's my stuff here's my response to my stuff

[11:22]

and there's something constricting about that experience. So our stuff is the fruits of all that's happened before, expressing themselves through the process of causality in the moment. How it's related to in the moment can be the product of Presence, intention, awareness, non-grasping. So in the moment we have the opportunity to relate other than or habituated way. And it's a simple proposition and an extraordinarily challenging one for us as human beings who are profoundly conditioned. And that's the dance we do when we meditate.

[12:31]

And part of the challenge is to become skillful with that dance. To stay deliberate, to stay exact, and not get caught up in some arising issue of control, suppression, avoidance. But to see ourselves as we move in that direction, and not exacerbate it. And that's the wonderful thing about working with the breath. You can very deliberately start over. Any other questions? I don't have a question so much as something I've noticed that I'm curious about and I don't know what to make of it. So after the first class, I started, while in Zazen, not just paying attention to my breath, but paying attention to the sensations I was feeling on my skin, tying it to an awareness practice that I had learned a number of years ago.

[13:41]

And then I also started doing it when I was walking on the street. And I was enjoying finding the experience interesting, informative, and one that I could tap into. So just last week, I traveled, and I was in a workshop setting where there was a lot of relationship dynamics. I was responsible for holding part of it, and it got pretty intense. So at a time when I wasn't responsible, I sat in the back, and I decided to watch my breath and pay attention to my skin. And I couldn't feel my skin. Except on my cheeks, and that was it. And I think I sat there for about five minutes and in no time. And then the next day I tried again and I couldn't fill my skin. And then I came back, first day in the Zendo, no problem. I could fill the fabric on my legs and it was just such a curious experience.

[14:46]

I just don't quite know what to make of it. You know, this is part of the dance between receptive attention and directed attention. Directed attention can help us alleviate some of the background chatter, the white noise, the agitations, distractions. Okay, come here, experience here. Except when we can't do it. When the noise wins out. Sometimes it's physiological. You're just amped up to a certain place that a certain way of directing your attention isn't going to work.

[15:48]

And that's how I said, start off just Don't have an agenda. Just experience what's being experienced. Like step one, no expectation. Just experience what's being experienced. And that in itself starts to introduce an influence. Because that's different from being all caught up in what you're experiencing. And then you can start to hone in. The question I would have asked if I'd have been sitting there with you and you'd said that, I would have said, well, okay, you're not experiencing your skin. What are you experiencing? Start there. And the amazing thing is when there is contact with what's arising, how we can shift

[16:57]

we can shift in moments. When there's grasping of lots arising, it seems like shifting is an impossible feat. I am so much this, it would be impossible to be anything different. Because when we're grasping it, all sorts of stuff is activated for us. All the different psychological motivations, different physiological motivations, habituated ways of thinking and feeling. They're very powerful. So what you say makes complete sense. Often there's an intensity to what we're doing and it's not just a simple matter for us to say, okay, turn that off. a matter of, OK, how can I start to make contact?

[18:07]

So I'd like to follow up. So if I were put in that same situation, rather than trying to direct my attention to my breath and the feel of my skin, just a receptive curiosity about what is it kind of experience? Yeah. Because I'm sure it's going to happen again. You never know. Good well, huh? Yeah. Put your hand up, Larry. It falls in the realm of, say, single-pointed attachment as a practice method. Uh-huh. . In other words, can I use it?

[19:11]

Can you use it? I mean, is it useful? Can we go back and forth? Something like that. Something like that. Yeah. It really stuck to me by saying, yes, it's quite a deep, you know, to remain open. And yet, sometimes when I need to be attentive, I find myself tricking in the song, oh, there are a bar I have to say. Not even a single point of attention. And how can you, is this particularly productive? Or is it bothered to that? can do. It was informative for me the last week, as I mentioned. I was leading a Vipassana retreat and I was interviewing the students and I thought, well, Vipassana students, they do this kind of thing and they report back like this.

[20:26]

Huh. A little different from Zen students, but not a lot. I've discovered that people do all sorts of things when they meditate. And the more honest, at the start, they feel like, well, I better tell you this, because this is what we're supposed to be doing, or maybe this is what I think you'd like to hear from me. And Gil was saying to me, he was saying, you know, I studied with Upandita, you know, many of you know as a highly esteemed Burmese Vipassana teacher. And then I studied with Harada Shodo Roshi in Japan.

[21:34]

And when I was with Upandita, he was talking about Vipassana. and when I was with Harada Roshi, he was talking about concentration, attention. He says, but as far as I could see, he was talking about mindfulness and teaching concentration, and he was talking about concentration and teaching mindfulness. It sort of made sense to me. best you can to be informed and intentional and in the midst of the abundance of the human experience come back you know okay here's the agenda here's how it's being engaged

[22:41]

If it's concentration practice, okay. You know, Harada Shoda Roshi has a very deliberate breath technique. It is a concentration practice because it's very deliberate. You stay with it. You do it. But then they, as we do in the Zen school, they have all sorts of particulars. You know, get up, do this, exactly like this. When the bell goes, do it exactly that way. It's like it's all right. be attentive to the moment and engage the moment and pay attention to detail on it and then Uttarajita teaches this exacting particular relationship to the breath when you look at the techniques of the schools of Buddhism you know this is my own two cents worth There's a lot of variation in both the Vipassana schools and the Zen schools, in the different techniques that are brought forth.

[23:54]

Harada Shodaro, she's an esteemed Rinzai Zen teacher. I've heard other Zen teachers say, follow the breathing, don't do that. Don't, just sit. Some Vipassana teachers say, tension at the nostrils, some say tension in the abdomen, some say rise and fall in the body, rise and fall in the abdomen. I would say it's very helpful to get the big picture, you know, that they're complementary, you know. That there's a way in which when you engage in wide attention, it helps get you in the room.

[24:58]

It helps you start to acknowledge what's going on. It helps you start to connect to who and what you are right now. It gets you that orientation. And then the particularity. And I would say, if your mind's jumping all over the place and you're charged with intense emotions, a subtle object of concentration is going to be useless. On the other hand, if just that wide opening, you started to feel extraordinarily settled. And already there was a kind of energetic sense of presence. You don't need to start clenching your breath like fury. You're kind of tuning, starting in that direction.

[25:59]

That's one aspect. Then another aspect is... And this might sound contradictory, but what you're used to? How have you been meditating? How have you been doing zaza? Because something in that repeated activity creates a kind of accessibility through the fact that it's been a repeated activity. So I would say that too, Larry. You know... If we have worked a lot with the breath and the abdomen, well, chances are, coming back to that will be helpful. My own notion of Zazen, in particularly Shikantaza, in particularly within Shikantaza, Jijiu Zammai,

[27:17]

to the arising activities of the self as an informative relationship to the moment. It's a combination of directed and receptive. Any other questions? about the relationship, how this fits into Shikata, how it would look on the question. Well, the point I was trying to make

[28:20]

in the last class was... Even though there's deliberate, wholehearted engagement, there's nothing to gain and nothing to lose. And this is kind of like the heart of Shikant Casa. Be the moment. Not the moment you want to have happening. Not the moment you're trying to avoid have happening. Be the moment as it's happening. And it's always exactly what it is. And you're having the response you're having to it. And that's like the heart of Shikantaza. And then the skillfulness is how all that's related. And as you engage it, and especially as you continue the process of engaging, start to see, okay, just let it arise with the inhale, let it fall away with the exhale, because there is a kind of a grasping to what's going on.

[29:48]

That's the problem with the setting, isn't it? Yeah. Yeah. It's like you have the fundamental notion of what Chikantaze is, and then that guides your effort. I hope that's not too complicated a notion. And if it is, just remember, come back to basics. Body, breath, noticing what's happening, and don't turn it into success and failure and gain and loss. If it's more like this, I'm doing it right.

[30:50]

If it's more like that, it's going wrong. So in the three classes so far, each one had a theme. The theme of the first class, in my mind. Maybe this will startle you, think, was I in that class? You know, I admit that whatever comes up, comes up. I'm more than happy to hear all your questions and comments. I don't see any necessity to be linear. I mean, this is to help you practice, so ask the question that helps you practice. The first one was about what sets the stage for practice in the different aspects of your life.

[31:53]

And I was thinking, it can be anything. It can be how you eat, how much you exercise, how much you sleep, how you relate to your emotional life, your relationships, whatever. What's conducive behavior in relationship to practice? Then the second one was, say yes to what's happening. If you put them as questions, what is it to behave in a way that supports practice? Second one, What is it to say yes to whatever's happening? And then third one, what is it to trust the process? And that strange handout you might have got, which was wonderfully strange in how it was scanned. Anyway, it was going to come up on my computer.

[32:55]

I thought, well... Maybe the very process of trying to read it will sort of enlighten you. The hazards of computers. Personally, I had no idea how to draw it into a manageable single screen. Did anyone? Very good. So those three things, right? What sets the stage? What is to say yes to whatever arises? And what is it to trust the process of engaging in that way?

[33:55]

And to remember... those aren't simple propositions. Each one of them is like the work of a lifetime. The circumstances of your life are always changing. They're always adjusting and attending to what's going on now and how to set the stage for practice. There's the the intricacies of saying yes to the moment. Make you think, okay, I want to experience the skin, the sensation on my skin. And you can't. But what about the question is, well, what are you experiencing?

[34:58]

Can you say yes to that? and how that plays with our own notions of who we are. Oh, I never do that. Really? What about when you do do that? Can you say yes to that then? I remember once being in therapy, and my therapist, and I was describing and experiencing And then I kind of like, I wanted to skip over the messy part, the negative emotions, to the beautiful Buddhist teaching conclusion. And he said, no, no, no. No, no, no. Don't be precocious. Acknowledge that you were angry.

[36:02]

agitated the version you know now it's that say yes to everything you know and to trust the process you know how much the habit energy of our life delivers itself what we want and what we don't want to energizing our desires and diversions to allowing ourselves to be fully present when or something like being fully present when circumstances meet our preconditions and how we contract or hold back when they don't.

[37:11]

So that trust, that willingness dependent upon the conditions. And how to shift from to the details of what's happening meet my agenda or not how to shift from that to the whole process of paying attention you know and that's what that koan was about do you trust the process of practice and then he answers by saying it can't be defiled No matter what comes up, it's still the moment. No matter what your mind creates in terms of judgments or likes and dislikes about what's arising, it's still what it is.

[38:13]

Noticing is noticing. It's not dependent upon what you're noticing or how well you think you're noticing or not noticing. It's just what it is. or the response you have to noticing it. Any comments or questions about that? We're going to come at the next, what I think, was what follows from there in two ways. One a more Thuravadin way, and one a more Zen way, according to me, of course. The Zen way is that lovely khan that Mark used last night in his talk.

[39:19]

Joshu, you know, Zen teacher, famous for his plainness. And how long it took him to get the message? Apparently, he practiced for many, many years then. When he was about 80, he clicked. It was an earthquake earlier today over in Berkeley. Here as well? Oh, the epicenter was in Berkeley, though. Yeah. This building, this hill, is solid rock, so it dampens.

[40:20]

So you're fairly safe here. If you wish, you can jump out of the tables or whatever you want. If there's time. Okay, back to Joshua. Could have. I like the way the light flickered. Long ago, I taught English in Japan, and I was teaching this class. And we had this earthquake. And I'd never been in an earthquake in my life. You know, I grew up in Ireland. And I thought, well, they've seen lots of earthquakes. And they know when to run out. You know? And so we're having this earthquake, and I'm looking at them, and they're like, nobody's moving.

[41:24]

And I thought, okay then. I just kept teaching. And then afterwards, I discovered everybody else left the building. But such is the nature of things in Japan. If the teacher doesn't say, let's go, nobody moves. And then afterwards, they were saying to me, You're so brave. And I said, no, I had no clue. I had no idea what was going on. Joshu. Monk comes to Joshu and says, I've come all this way for your teachings, please.

[42:32]

teach me. And Joshua says, have you eaten? He says, yeah. Wash your bow. In one version, that's it. That's the khan. In another version, the monk says to Joshua, is that it? He's like, that's all you got? Joshua goes, yeah. That's it. Practice can be completely interwoven with the activity of life. Whatever you're doing, do it. And then more subtly, that in whatever you're doing, there's the particular and there's the process.

[43:45]

Okay? If you're eating your lunch, eat your lunch. There's a process of paying attention to eating your lunch. There's a process of engaging this as if You were this activity and nothing else. As if you were here and nowhere else. This is the moment that exists and no other moment exists. Totally trust this now as being now. Engage it and trust it. And let it alive completely. And this is part of the flavor of the Zen school. You do what you're doing because that's what you're doing.

[44:55]

If that's what needs to be done or if that's what's happening, do it. If it doesn't need to be done, don't do it. Do what does need to be done. It's functional, it's straightforward. And it completely reveals and expresses the nature of what is. So you could say the monk says, well, is that it? And Joshua says, when you engage this, when you engage this way, you'll see not only is that yet, that's everything. When you engage this moment completely, nothing's left out. And right in our sitting, engaging the breath and the body in a way...

[46:07]

that doesn't leave the sign of the motorbike, that doesn't leave the thought that comes into your mind, that doesn't leave whatever comes up. And so in the Zen school, every particular becomes that potent, that significant, that relevant and that way of exemplifying the nature of what is. So there's a directed attention of do what you're doing and then there's a receptive attention like nothing's left out. This is the whole picture. This is

[47:08]

concentration practice, and this is Vipassana practice. This is directed attention, receptive attention. So this is the flavor of the Zen school. And then also part of the flavor of the Zen school is this kind of beautiful understatement. there's a similar kind of coin where a monk comes and asks the teacher a question and the teacher gives a similar answer and the monk says to the teacher, you're a big shot teacher and you have like 500 monks underneath you and that's the best you can come up with? And the teacher says, yeah, that's the best I can come up with.

[48:11]

This beautiful understatement is like, yeah, I guess it's not enough for you, but that's it. No kind of like, oh, wait a minute, let me explain it all to you. Let me justify giving that kind of answer. Yeah. It is what it is. And even if your mind's saying, well, that ain't much, just keep practicing. How the hell is just paying attention to the body and the breath and the body? How's that going to result? Do you know what kind of problems I have in my life? Do you know the stuff I'm working with? Just keep doing it. and discover that it will touch every part of your life.

[49:19]

The Zen style, it's like just a kind of understatement. In a way, avoiding rationalization, explanation, Oh, well, this is a good teaching because such and such and such. Well, it's a teaching about realization. Realization in its depth can't be explained. It can be experienced. And in the experiencing, something can be illuminated. And even if someone explains it to you, you just got an idea in your head. You're still obliged to take the practice, do it, and discover it directly.

[50:29]

Because every process of trusting is we earn the trust. In some wonderful way we're moved. I still remember the first couple of Zen books that I read. I remember reading a book about Zen, The Iron Flute. And I was just exhilarated. I couldn't sleep. And then I remember reading it about 10 years later and thinking, wow, how the hell did I make sense out of this? Then I was thinking, now I've read like these Zen books and I know I see all the relevance and the references and but I don't know first time I picked it up I got something our trust our confidence arises in whatever way it arises something of the magic of the human condition you know

[51:43]

Maybe you're deeply persuaded by the elegant thought process of it. Or maybe you just, like someone told me once, they came here and we were in the middle of the full moon ceremony. And they came in and we were doing the ceremony and they said, this is it. This is the place for me. And she started to sit and immediately started to make arrangements to change her life and live here. And she was 73. She moved in and lived here until she died. So something brings you some trust

[52:45]

And then you kind of view, through direct experience, it's like trusting that we're Buddha, we enter Buddha's way. That intuitive knowing and trusting is affirmed by experience. So all this is the flavor of the Zen school. You don't need an explanation. Something in you already knows all about this. Right now, your mind might be saying, what? What are you talking about? Or you might be bitterly disappointed. Wash your bowl? How's that ever going to solve my life or the problems with humanity in what seems to be an unraveling of our ecosystem.

[53:52]

Okay, that's the Zen way. And you can put that into practice you go through your day just doing what you need to do no okay what am i doing what do i need to be doing there's a guy on the street trying to fix his car and i was thinking ah he's taking that something under the front wheel. Taking the shock side, dismantling the whole darn thing. That's what he needed to do.

[55:00]

You know? Get in there, on the street, take his car apart. You just do what you need to do and entrust your life to it. And if it's not what you need to be doing, then why are you doing it? He didn't seem to be having a good time at all. Every now and then he'd swear. And I don't think he was successful because none of the cars like jammed up against the telegraph pole. then... So coming at your life, something, in that way, you know?

[56:11]

I hope you got the flavor of some of that, you know, that... kind of... The complete integration of the utilitarian... the practice you know it's not like okay take care of the utilitarian things in your life and then when they're done you can do the exalted precious practice no they're not any different In what way is it more? Yeah, or the activity.

[57:14]

Immersing in the activity, yeah. Dogenzenji's total exertion of a single act. doing what's in front of you. Okay, and then I'd like to, from an early Buddhist perspective, the five factors, the five capacities that you bring forth in the practice of awareness. Trust, energy, mindfulness, samadhi and insight. That you bring them forth. It's not that... It's not like you don't have them.

[58:18]

It's more like... The agitations and your distractions that are going on within you are thwarting them and cutting off their availability. So you just stimulate the capacity to engage. You enhance their potency. So we've talked quite a bit about trust. So I hope that one makes sense. And you can see how in the Zen school, in some ways there's a strong flavor of trust. You don't have to know the outcome. You don't even have to have a well-developed intellectual approach. Just do it. And then the second one...

[59:24]

And the word in Pali, sadha, it covers trust, confidence, faith. And then the second one, virya, covers persistence, engagement, energy. And you can see it's also embedded in that story about Joshua. And then you can also see that it's right there in your sitting. It's right there in your practice of mindfulness. Keep at it. Keep coming back. It works if you work it. Yeah, exactly.

[60:28]

Is there anything that works if you don't work it? Not really. If there isn't engagement in it. And then when you look at the descriptions, they talk about as consciousness engages and becomes absorbed, And the restrictions that are in hesitancies that are created through her habituated ways of being, as we become so involved that they aren't so active, there's this extraordinarily energizing process. You know, it says in the sutras, it's like an electrical charge. The hers stand up on your body. No. The body is flooded with pleasant sensation.

[61:37]

The mind is exhilarated. It becomes attentive and bright and filled joy something about engagement you know and that we've all experienced you know usually we experience it because what's happening meets our agenda yeah this is what I really want to have happened and it's happening and I'm so delighted But at the heart of practice, engagement that isn't just, actually isn't at all, being engaged because it's what I want.

[62:42]

It's because it's what's happening. And then Halvurya is expressed as persistence. this kind of process where even though your habit energies are saying do this don't do that you know get distracted get carried away in your thoughts ruminate about the things that are bothering you in your life you know get agitated about the things you're upset about you know the persistence is saying okay just notice it don't grasp it experience it in the body, notice the mental states that come with it, the emotions, persistence. This way, I remember once listening to the Dalai Lama talk, and he was being his usual beautiful, kind, and joyous self.

[63:52]

And then someone asked him about enlightenment. And he stopped, Dad, and he said, Enlightenment is really, really difficult. Those habit energies, they just keep on coming. At some point, the willingness to just... Practice forever with the arising of your habit energy. Okay? This is just how it is. That kind of persistence. This isn't going anywhere, and the effort to practice with it isn't going anywhere either.

[64:54]

And out of that, the engagement that lets something be energized, lets something flow. Not according to your agenda, but according to its intrinsic nature of being. Okay, energy. Any questions about that one? Again, you might start with directed attention. I'd rather show those techniques. He's enormously energetic. So you can see, now I see why the samurai did Rinzai Zen. Enormously energetic, directed assertion of effort.

[66:11]

Any questions? Okay. And then mindfulness. of the balancing factor between what you might call the approach you know you know the trust then make your effort the trust engage and then mindfulness notice what's happening now okay I'm trying to sense sensations on my skin and how's going you know this is extraordinary quality of mindfulness that it has no agenda no it's just to be present

[67:26]

it's just to experience whatever is rising and it includes everything and anything that does arise no the process of mindfulness is liberating because the process of our habit energy is to want a certain result experience and have consequential response to however it goes this is not what I wanted or you know whatever you know that mindfulness is this wide open acceptance and it's also this precise simple process note notice what's happened the sound of the siren and if it gives rise to attendant associated thoughts stimulate emotions notice that too and how it will keep

[68:55]

Mindfulness will keep giving us a kind of like course correction. Okay, I should practice like this. Okay. And how's that going? What happens when you're doing that? And so that's your intention. And what exactly are you doing now? Is that what you're doing? Are you following your breath? Or are you caught in an ambivalent engagement? I should be following my breath, but I really want to think about this. Mindfulness just holds it all. You should be following your breath, but you're thinking about that argument you had. Okay? What is it to practice with that?

[69:57]

And then the next factor, samadhi, continuous contact. You know, where the noticing becomes a steady stream of contact. Are you raising your hand or are you just moving your hand? Okay. Steady stream of contact. Again, there's a commitment and then non-selectiveness, in a way. from the perspective of mindfulness. And very much the flavor of mindfulness and the flavor of Shukkan Paza is that the mindfulness, the attentiveness, the open engagement will influence the arising experience.

[71:26]

And that influence will help it to purify, help it to be itself. Sometimes the quality of that is a kind of settling, and sometimes the quality of that is a quality of widening, not things excluded. Like with this open presence. Whatever arises, It's just what's next. There's a jolt of an earthquake? Okay, there's a jolt of an earthquake. Where's the problem? Just part of the present moment now. And then sometimes there is a settling. It's like the...

[72:31]

the elemental experiences of the senses becomes more vivid. And the continuous contact is almost tactile or sticky. Within the Buddhist formulation, you know, as... the other factors that enable awareness start to come into being uh attending to the moment becomes more available it's like just as we were saying earlier if your mind's agitated and your body's all tense it's hard to experience the subtleties of the moment and the opposite is true too when your mind is quiet and your body's quiet, your senses could naturally become more easily engaged.

[73:43]

And the continuous contact is more like it does you rather than you do it And then out of that, Panya, Krishna, wisdom. And then there's three forms of wisdom. This wisdom is you get to see your own stuff. Oh, I tend to think about it like that. I tend to have these patterns of emotions. I tend to do well with this kind of person and do badly with that kind of person. Do well and badly, meaning open, engage smoothly, or the opposite. So it's like becoming more aware of the world according to me and how it unfolds, what kind of patterns there are.

[75:04]

mentally and emotionally maybe even more aware of your own perceptions you know how you perceive and then insight into the process you know your personal process oh these kinds of things make me kind of shaky. And when I'm shaky, I tend to behave more like this. These kinds of situations or responses. I remember once I took a course on brief therapy, you know, brief counseling. And... And the guy was showing these videos of himself doing brief counseling, because sometimes he'd only like have one session with a client.

[76:15]

And one of the interesting features of his style was to offer a reassuring acknowledgement for the person. And he'd show these videos. of people would come in and they'd be very stressed, and he'd start to engage them. And then he'd offer a very genuine and perceptive reassurance of their experience. And it was like magic. You could just watch the person settle a little bit, or a lot. Watch them go from an agitated distraction The kind of, really? I am doing okay? Oh, okay then. Seeing our own human condition and meeting it.

[77:30]

with that kind of acknowledgement. This is the human condition. This has within it the teachings of the path of liberation. This has within it the way to not be so caught up in behaviors that cause you suffering and the opportunity for behaviors and responses that cause you joy happiness, liberation, satisfaction. Hey, that's pretty good news. That kind of involvement arising through direct, intimate experience with what's going on for us. so this and then the way in which as we have insights into our own behaviors and and our own emotional life and similar things as we make more sense to ourselves there's a kind of a reassurance there too oh

[79:00]

You know, often it occurs to me that our distractedness in sitting is an expression of our underlying discomfort or agitation with what's happening in that moment. It's like, okay, I'm agitated and distressed, so... Let's get out of here. Let's go anywhere. Let's go into the past, the future, some other thing. And the more we start to see that, the more we have insight into that, the more we start to make sense to ourselves of what's going on for us and how it's being responded to. He said that when Shakyamuni awakened, in his awakening, he saw all the trends of thought that humans have.

[80:34]

And in seeing them, was able to not in a way that it made sense. Oh, well, if that's what we're like, that's how we are, of course it makes sense that we'd be thinking and feeling and behaving all the ways we'll behave. But there's something fundamentally reassuring about that. What is a more reasonable response than kindness and compassion? You think, oh, the person's very agitated and distressed and they're behaving like that.

[81:38]

Oh, well, it sort of makes sense, doesn't it? they're agitated and distressed or they're self-medicating like this you know so it's like the kindness and compassion become a more compelling proposition And then there's a third level of wisdom, which is called wisdom beyond wisdom, which is that beyond all the ideas, all the concepts, all the responses we have to it, the nature of what is, is what is.

[82:39]

not what we think it is it's like that presence in which we're not asserting a me more like The existence of the moment is just being what it is. And something more than what I think it is, is being asserted. And there's a knowing beyond concepts. So those are the three schools of wisdom. Or three versions of wisdom, maybe. Not the three schools of wisdom, three modalities of wisdom. They do line up in different ways with different schools of Buddhism.

[83:50]

Okay. And so the teaching in relationship to that, by marvelous coincidence, the same one as came yesterday in the practice period, the practice of right speech, which is... Is it true? Is it timely? Is it constructive, skillful? Is this a skillful way to say it? And is it being said with a benevolent attitude? So when you're about to deliberately have a conversation, sometimes you can do it in action, but often it's good upon a little thought in advance.

[85:02]

But sometimes you can do it in action. You can just watch, you know, where am I at right now, you know? Especially if there's an edge to your attitude. It's like, hmm. And why am I about to say this the way I'm about to say it? am I really trying to be helpful I just kind of like want to make a point and then what happens when you do it the way you do it you know what happens when you make a point does the other person beam with a smile and say oh thank you so much for criticizing me like that I have a warm glow now. Or do they lower their head, or do they stiffen their back and say, well, let me tell you about you. So something...

[86:12]

where the whole process comes out of the abstract and enters into the engagement of your life. Something that most of us are doing a lot of the time, talking, relating, engaging. Okay. And I will send you a handout on both of those. That's your homework. Both of those. It's a double-barreled homework. You can make a choice. You want to be all zen, or you want to be just kind of like, they're up bad. Or if you're just too stupid to remember all the details and think, well, I wash my bowl every time I eat, so I'll go with that. I got that part.

[87:18]

But my assistant is in Japan until Tuesday, so if there's anyone who would like to volunteer to scan these things tomorrow, who's around, great. Okay, we have it. And they will be, hopefully, emailed you tomorrow. Okay, thank you so 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.

[88:11]

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