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. Asking what's happening. Not so much on a level of thought, but on the level of perception.

[01:04]

Arising. Soundy. Physical sensation. Thoughts. Just for a few moments, you notice. But it can be exactly as it is. Letting that presence, letting that engagement deliberately, mentally, and thoroughly become aware of the body.

[02:15]

and bringing up. It brings breath in the way it's binding. set of details of what's happening.

[05:06]

Whenever arises, come from the body inside, find this complete willingness just to be as it is already experiencing. In some ways, it's a sophisticated notion to use our thought process as an ally for awareness.

[08:26]

Because so much of the time, our thought process is running the show. What we think is what it is, and what we're responding is to that version of reality. We like it, we don't want it, we want more. in terms of significant ways of who we are and what the world is. So it's a significant and sophisticated notion to say, well, why did I relate to it as an agent of support for awareness? So having said that, I was Thank you, Marsha. Hello? It felt a little like you knew your mind to me.

[09:42]

Yeah. Yeah. I made up the script. Yes. And I had them on my door, you know, and you know, it was like, about looking at it and then to kind of take that with me. I wasn't able to actually make it hurt. Did I have any words of any kind? I don't think it did. But I'm not saying that it's involved in the process. I think it was just something about And did it arise at all during the day?

[10:47]

When I see it. So very dependent on . I appreciate you doing it. Yes. Okay, thank you. Anyone else? Anyone else want to declare their complete failure with it?

[11:51]

I generally don't like hot water. This week, I was very conscious of it, where I would reach for a dish and it would be in the hot water, and so I'd jump away from it. And that sort of has been a long thing for me, of just not liking hot water. Like, oh, well, let this kill me. It's obviously not going through, but that seems to be what I'm afraid of. So let it happen and reach back in for the dish. How was that? It was hot. My hands are sensitive. I'm still alive. Not yet.

[12:55]

Good thanks. Anyone else? I didn't do the homework, but the combination of the two columns about being on the top of a 150-foot pole. No, it's just a plane. Oh, sorry. I'm sorry. And then. Well, I was feeling afraid to step off. Yes. Then when you were talking about coming to the top of the staircase to realize the Emerald Palace wasn't there. That helped me to kind of feel like at first it was very unsettling to realize that actually I'm not on a pole, that even the pole isn't there. That was what it felt like. But then in terms of stepping off of it, I was like, oh, well, I don't actually have to step off of it. It's not there anyway. I'm just floating anyway.

[13:56]

And I don't think I necessarily did something in response to that. But in the next couple of days, it felt less intense and less scary and less of a huge decision that I would have to make on my part and more of a, it just keeps going. Was that an abstract process or did it take home within some of the takeaways of your life? It was abstract. Yes, Ronnie. Revealing my 60s roots, I translated as keep on trucking. And I first applied that to, you know, the hot and the cold, and I thought, well, that fits better on stepping off the 100-foot pole. I know. And for me, it kind of typifies both of them for a message that I got.

[15:01]

Yeah. couple of times in this past week I've been tired or not sick but on the edge and could be getting sick and just having that phrase keep on trucking anyway I kept on trucking and moved on through so that's what it symbolized also I mentioned it to Chris and he had a very nice scroll down the Daiton in there. Robert Crumb, keep on trucking. I'm in an experiment with it, which has to do with taking a shower. And I'm in a place right now where the hot water heater is very far from the shower.

[16:08]

So normally you go in there. And it's one of these turns. It's not too much. It's this thing that turns on from cold and all the way over. It's hot and all the way over. It's cold. So normally I turn it all the way over to hot. And then I brush my teeth. It starts to get warm, everything a little longer, and then I put it away too long, and it's really hot, and then turn it back. So I thought, okay. Too cold or too hot until it kills you, how is it? Anyway, so I thought, okay, I turn it on, it's really cold, I'll just jump right in there, so you can see what happens there, and notice that. And it was really cold. And then after a while, okay. and adjust it, and you stand there and start to get a shower. And it's slowly, slowly, slowly. And then it gets way too hot. So it could actually be all dangerously so. It couldn't kill me, but it would definitely scald me.

[17:09]

And you adjust it back. And after those two experiences, now I'm back in the medium, which is what I usually didn't find before I could get a person I should have. So then I just thought, you know, let me somehow put my mind in the first few experiences. As to the pole, and stepping off under the pole, I had to draw upon this guy in the chair. I was here with Buckaroo Banzai's view of what to do in that situation. He was a hitchhiker's guide to the universe. And he came out with, so you're sitting on a 100-foot pole, and you're going to step off a 100-foot pole. His advice was, just remember, wherever you go, there you are. Thank you. Yes? I actually kind of was resenting some of this.

[18:12]

But at the end of the day, I was hired to say good day. So I really looked at that, where it's just connected . And so I was having that So that was going on in May. But I have to say it was helpful, because it kind of reminded me of suffering. Like, there's love suffering. And this isn't permanent. Like, that's kind of . And then also, I'm still kind of, I'm actually living with some consequence around . Because of . And a very loving female . jumping off that pole. So it feels kind of like, hey, let's see what happens.

[19:15]

So you know, it's not always just like, there's a consequence. I'm going to go to the on the call. had something to say about the good day, I said, every day is a good day. And when it's a bad day, every day is an opportunity to be grateful to be present in this precious life. And the whole thing, I read it. I'm not there. bottom of the pole. So it was sort of like, someday when I get to the top of the pole, I mean, I like the part about coming down the pole to help other people. Because they kind of talk about jumping off the pole, but they also talk about coming down the pole to help others. And I thought that was lovely. But I couldn't see myself at the top of the pole. I thought that was sort of someone that's more experienced. When you're experienced in this,

[20:27]

for the sake of thinking we're at the top. I mean, I felt like it was probably sticking to those who have more experience and might get more experience in all of this, in Buddhism, in being present, in practicing, in more experience with practice. I want this practice. Um, present and I felt like it was speaking to that you never get to the Emerald Palace that it's to say as a beginner mind is a wonderful thing but I still feel like I couldn't really relate to getting there but I feel like I'm

[21:31]

Is there some way, if you were to ask yourself, if my life worked very well, it would look like this. Will you have an answer to this? I used to. Lately. So something like that kind of notion, you know, when reading an email, we just call it almost metaphorically or methodologically. Some part of us, and I would say for every one of us, there's some way in which maybe not so examined, but it says something like, well, if things worked out really well, it will be something like this.

[22:38]

This is one of the things you learn from your fantasies. You know, when your mind goes off and starts conjuring something up. Often it's about, you know, sometimes when it comes out of our anxieties, we conjure up something terrible. I'm not referring to those. I'm referring to when we conjure up something positive, something that for us is gratifying or pleasurable. So when we conjure something else, that would be just wonderful. That would be good. So something like that. You can think of them this way. You can think of them quite literally. Okay, here's a proposition. Every day is a good day.

[23:45]

So there's this fundamental proposition that's saying, okay, don't turn away from your life. Take it on. Day by day. Just do it. And I remember many years ago reading, who wrote that slogan for Nike. Just do it. And they say to him, where'd you come up from? He says, I'm a Buddhist practitioner. And as far as I'm concerned, that's kind of the heart of Buddhist practice. Just do it. It's not that normal. There we are. Nike is paying for a hundred million dollar Buddhist teaching for the whole world. Something like that. There's your life. Do it. Do it. Do it. And then similarly, step forward.

[24:53]

Because you can't go backwards. Time doesn't go backwards. are in this time, which is the consequence of all the things that happened before your life. All the things you've done in this life. I remember watching this interview with Leonard Cohen. He had a successful career, made all this money, and all this time he was a Zen practitioner. And he said, okay, I just got like cut out the BS, and commit 10 years of my fault. So he went to my family for 10 years. And money was away. His manager invested all his money, and spent every darn penny on it. And so when he went to the monastery, he was totally broke. And we were interviewing him, and he was like, when did I feel about it?

[25:57]

He was kind of saying, you know, here's what I learned. life, you're trying to do something. You're trying to win, you're trying to achieve, you're trying to succeed, you're trying to compete. It doesn't work. You don't win, you don't succeed, you just do what you do. And then, of course, you've got it all together. They had a whole lot of music and went all these, you know, what do they call them, you know, these folk and all these replay, you know, they did a world tour and I assume gathered a whole bunch more money. But something in that, your whole life energy, your whole life effort is endeavoring in a way, you know, even when it's not that clearly what endeavor is,

[26:57]

It's brought to right here and now. at a positive attitude. So we're all three of them in that regard. I was talking to someone, a long-term practitioner, a very dedicated practitioner, and they were telling me about how something came out in their life and that they just

[28:01]

completely blocked. I just can't. I just can't do it. Something in me completely shuts down. Something in me just says, no, I can't do it. I just feel overwhelmed. I feel ordered. I get inadequate. I feel frightened. I feel intimidated. How do I fix this? From a Zen perspective, there is no way to fix it. This is actually a wonderful teaching about karma. You make all these endeavors to get someplace, to succeed in something, And then the forces of life are construed to show you you're not in control.

[29:09]

You're not in charge. And often that just happens for us around. Often, sadly, it happens around some way our life is just torn open. Somewhat closer. diagnosis of cancer, or you go through a horrible wake-up, and your world is just torn open. And the patterns of behavior, the patterns of thought, and then you put together a craft, some kind of coping, some way of holding, shaping, moving your life forward and it almost disrupts you. It's something in you that says no.

[30:15]

I hate this. This is not what I wanted. This isn't the way I've been planning it. This isn't what I've been hoping for. step forward. I've reached time and say there's a way to relate to life and it isn't just the agendas that I've concocted. There's a deeper reason It's not about denying that we get locked. It's not about denying that sometimes the circumstances of life throw themselves in front of us and take apart what we're trying to hold together.

[31:25]

It's about in those moments how do we find the fortitude It's not by, well, why did you create a new and improved ideal goal? It's more of an invitation to enter the world that's not defined by the agendas of self. So I was talking to this person, and they were deeply touched because this issue for them was very, very provocative and powerful.

[32:36]

And not so accessible to their cognitive mind, deeply emotional. And finding that, tapping into that. I don't know how many of you have had that experience. But something really rotten happens in your life. Turn you apart. And you find some way to proceed. You find some way to move forward. So, anyway, tell me about that. And you say, oh, this is just of the elite territory of the advanced meditation. Maybe. Not to say it's not, but it's also the stuff of human life. That each one of us is setting forth in a certain way, and each one of us has to pay attention.

[33:49]

And life is Zen practice. You start out thinking, oh, Zen practice is something I do at 5.30 on a Wednesday evening. And you can keep pulling on that thread and then see that thread connects to all the different parts of your life. There's nothing outside of it. Whether you want to say, well, this is my life or this is my practice, take your faith, it's still the same proposition. We're trying to be alive, we're trying to engage this existence in a way that causes less suffering and brings about more expansive appreciation, connection, satisfaction. or questions about that?

[35:00]

Why is it sometimes easier to deal with a cancer diagnosis than a stuck doubt? Sometimes something It just offers us a kind of challenge that we can allow ourselves to be ourselves in relationship to. And then other things are so big. by myself to be all that's coming up for me in relation to that.

[36:02]

Some part of our hesitancy is saying it will kill me. I let myself feel all that's involved in this. It would just be utterly disruptive. I would fall apart. My world would fall apart. If I really said what I feel to other people, they will never speak to me again. It's very interesting. When you're doing hospice work, and you're relating to someone who's dying, and there's faith, you know? When you research faith, like say something like, you're dying. When you reach a faith, you have to quit work. I'm never going to have a job again. I'm never going to be a regular person in society doing all those things.

[37:06]

And that may be enormously difficult. Or it may not. You may reach a phase where you're getting weak you're not going to be out of bed again. This is more or less it. And that may be enormously difficult and painful. And when you do hospice work, you will ask the person, take the next step. I don't know how I'm going to go off. I just don't know. if I can do it. I don't know how to do it. Then you take the next step. So, this is what it is to be human.

[38:07]

This is to live what it is to live in an ever-changing world. This is what it is to live in an ever-changing body. So from that existential perspective, it's just asking us to tap into our hesitancy, our fears. As I was talking to this person, and they were saying, okay, so I shouldn't. And I said, no, no, it's not that you shouldn't. You are exactly who you are. enormity with the majesty the potency of that register that's the place in which you take the next step see nothing to it and then also

[39:38]

From another way, it's almost like asking the impossible of ourselves. Each time we sit on our cushion, our whole world comes to bear in that moment. all the strategies, distractions, preoccupations. And yet, right at the heart of it, this moment's activity is the vital force of being alive. And this effort to somehow make it manageable. Then you are endeavored to climb the pole, to achieve, to whatever that takes, however that takes shape within us.

[40:58]

And it's interesting because this column is not saying don't do it, you know, just forget all your endeavors. Now it's saying this is what it is to do with it. Take the next step. And then too hot and too cold is it's not neutral. It's not somehow just a theoretical consideration. We have a human response. We're frightened. We're delighted. We yearn. Oh, if only I've done it. If only my manager had spent all my life, I could happily retire now after my 10 years in the Zip Ministry.

[42:08]

Someone who went to one of Leonard Cohen's concerts said to me, I think I should have That's how they came to my mind. In a way, there's something ferocious and too hot and too cold. It's like being willing to experience what it is to be human. Because you are one. And then being willing to take the next step. And then see within that formable request that life unfolds and it has its own teaching.

[43:16]

And it has its own blessing. It has its own gift. Any comments or questions about all of that? Yes. Is staying still ever? What's that? Is staying still ever? Staying still? Similar to taking a step. In our training. We're staying still in contrast to continually striving to get what we want and avoid what we don't want. And then in our life, everything's always changing.

[44:18]

And the station in practice, which sometimes we call, like we say, something like stillness within action. What it means is not being all caught up, not being busy, just doing simply, directly, without all the internal chatter and agitation. I'm going to do it perfectly or I'm going to fail or whatever. But in the training, there's something about not continuing our efforts to make life just the way we want it. That kind of skills. Inactivity is not embellishing. And that, first of all, is not embellishing, is not exacerbating the suffering, the agitation.

[45:33]

And then more closely, there is stillness in action. So, sort of, sort of not. But you know what there is? There's the utter joy of, if you think about it, it's a very interesting proposition. You can say, I don't know exactly what's going to happen next. And you can think, what a wonderful adventure. What will happen? I just wonder what will happen. What is this person in front of you going to say next? Or you can say, how do I know I'll be okay? How do I know things are going to turn out in an acceptable manner?

[46:39]

It's almost like a blank canvas. Which will you bring forth? Adventure or some deep anxiety? Any other thoughts or questions? I just had one comment about that happy day. Yes. And there was one day after a tiring day when I was walking down the street to here. And every street where all the restaurants are kind of glowing and it's bright and colorful. I thought happy day just popped up. I was primed for it with my koan. Good. So I don't think it has to be a conscious way of bringing it to the koan. Let me say a little bit about that. So classically in Zen is something like this.

[47:41]

It's a little bit like you make yourself receptive to the proposition. the Cohen offers. You know, normally we're operating on a cognitive level. Okay, let me think about that. Okay, I hear the proposition and here's what I think. You know? And she'd make herself perceptive. Okay, here's what I feel. And then there's some way that was my belief. take it in our gut. Sometimes we call it intuitive, sometimes we call it a gut feeling. So classically, you do the sunset and it ripens you into that kind of rest, receptivity.

[48:50]

And then often from that place, And I just thought experimenting with repeating it, but it's true. It's like following your breath. But one way that can just be the discipline of not getting distracted. But actually, the extent of the request is, be nothing but the breath. the experience of breath. It's not like, okay, give it 20% of your attention, in the meantime, stay caught up in your thinking, and it's more like, be nothing but breath. And then the breath and the experience of breathing becomes everything, and includes everything. Colin work can be like that too.

[49:54]

The receptivity is such that the Colin is engaged deeply and finds its expression all over. And then there's different ways to facilitate it. You can just sit there and keep repeating it. You can write your day Ring it up, even though it doesn't seem to be in any way relevant to what's in front of you. You're reading your breakfast and you send it every day to go to bed. And then the challenge is, well, how is that when you're reading your breakfast? Or you're sending an email. Ring, ring everything. And then it's a deeper way. So on one hand, there it is right in the middle of our coming life.

[51:00]

We're all climbing a pole one way or another. Consciously and unconsciously. Then there is the Dharma of it. Starting to see that, starting to be aware of that process as an expression of how we get stuck and how we liberate it. and then there's a way of going beyond the ideas and giving countries something more visual I hope that made any sense to you at all well one question is Should I try to say it another way? It's like a person comes and they're saying to me, I'm stuck.

[52:04]

I'm stuck. And when I'm stuck, I feel overwhelmed. I feel like I just don't know what to do. It's like my mind goes numb. I feel ashamed. I feel like here I am. And people have expectations of me. I want to become, I can't. I feel, um, in comfort. I can't be more than this. So the karma, the force of karma breaks the burn. But then there's something, There's a very part of that that really expresses my life. Most of the time, sort of distracting ourselves, shifting to another endeavor of success or something.

[53:19]

It's only, as I say, in those moments of tragedy or trauma that we get truly confronted with the composition of impermanence. When the Dharma just presents itself irrefutably. So that we engage our life in a way, not that we go looking for trouble. But interestingly, the reverse happens. That you become more appreciative of the sweetness of one. You start to think, you know what? I can walk, and I can talk, and I can move my hands. And there are people in the world that I like and love.

[54:29]

and can relate to it. I can do things. I am abide, you know. Even though I don't know what's going to happen tomorrow, I can, when I step up, I fold, the coin goes on and says, and the whole world for one body. When you stop that pole, you enter the world. You become part of it, rather than just staying inside the shell of the world according to me, in the hopes that within this shell there's some control, there's some safety, there's some predictability. It's so human, you know?

[55:37]

It's so understandable. Because I had spoken desperately once. We want predictability. We want safety. We want control. In the very process of setting up our shell, we're also separating from others. And what do we want? We want others love. So we set up a barrier. And so this is the great human genome. So the colon says, when you take the step, you become part of the world. You become part of the one body. We have the karma, we have the dharma, and then Madhuri, beyond the constructs of our karma and the constructs of the dharma.

[56:47]

So does that make you feel better? Just to reflect on all of this. And just like, hmm. Yeah. Kind of how it is. Even just to reflect on it. isn't too bad. Maybe this drive within to accomplish or complete or achieve or compete.

[57:58]

Maybe to step beyond that. And actually, the too hot and the too cold are mostly a self construct. Mark Twain had a wonderful saying where he said something like, there are many disasters in my life and some of them actually happen. So I'm going to shift gears a little bit. This kind of way that carries some of the wind of the Zen school, some of the flavor, some of the approach

[59:09]

Then it's going to be interesting. It's always been appealing to me pretty much since I started Zen practice. Poetry would be woven into it. But the great thing about poetry is it's not trying to be linear. It's not trying to say, oh, here's a linear teaching. Life is like this. Life shoots. happened this way and should not happen that way. Could be more like saying, well just look at this, look at just the way it is. The shape, the size, the color, the smell, the movement of it. So this flavor of our existence it's it shapes the practice existentially rather than so in the earlier teachings you have the human condition and the hesitancy

[60:37]

that which squirts just to, you know, you have the hindrances. You have the basic modality of desire, aversion, and either ignoring or being confused. And in the early teachings it is, you have these, When they're infused with insight, you see the root of desire. So when you see clearly, it gives rise to trust, faith. When you see clearly the root of a virgin, it gives rise to, you know this picture? Wisdom. And you see clearly the world of ignoring or delusion gives rise to equanimity.

[61:45]

And then in practicing with each film, you see, well, there's a kind of scope away to relate to your desires. You examine, you see, oh, What do I desire? What kind of thought process goes on? What kind of emotions get attached to it? How does it express itself? What's the antidote to it? What's the disciplined behavior that helps to dissipate it? You know, as a Thurban monk in Thailand for a while, he was all about it. Got a desire? Cut it up. We ate once a day, and we sat out the food. And let me tell you, you may even eat once a day. You get very interested in eating. A big meal comes up in the egg yolk.

[62:49]

It's like Christmas, or Hanukkah, or whatever you want. Whatever your persuasion is for a spectral event. It's like that meal is a big deal. We sat out the food. through our process to go through who gets passed on and all that stuff. It's all set. And then the teacher sits there, talks about the weather, talks about, you know, everything, anything. And the party was going, eat, [...] eat. And then it always seemed to me every day. It's like some party just gives. I was like, OK, I don't care. I just don't care anymore. At that very moment, maybe he was looking at my face. At that very moment, he'd say, okay, let's eat.

[63:52]

Wherever there was desire, cut it off. And then, similarly with a very bad which you're resisting, bad which you're tightening and contracting against, bad which you're leading with aggression or turning it inward and trying to suppress. To not let that contraction, that aversion, that pushing away, to examine What is it that I'm resisting? How am I resisting it? What happens here in that resisting, in that aversion? And what's the antidote?

[64:53]

The antidote? Generosity, loving kindness, sympathetic thought. So very, in a way very linear. Here's your problem and here's the cure. And then similarly with ignoring, confusion. Okay, look at it clearly. Bring mindfulness to it. Don't ignore it. Pay attention. Radical, honest, emotions that come up with it, the kind of anxiety that sort of grows out of our confusion, our indebellence, our hesitancy.

[65:59]

We're trying to deny it, we're trying to ignore it, but actually, the urgency of our denial and ignoring is because we're totally in touch with it. If we were oblivious to it, Let me just do it with you. Ignoring is a kind of more intentional involvement. So something, and what I'm trying to illustrate here, is something, a certain methodology is similar. And then Zen comes along and it says things like, having few desires. It doesn't say, cut them all off at the root. It's more like saying, Don't get all strung out under desire. Don't get obsessed about what you want.

[67:05]

This is something about appreciating life. Something about appreciating each other. Something about appreciating A difference in flavor. And part of this is based on... If you can subdue, release, extinguish, the nirvana is to blow up, to extinguish. the root of desire and aversion.

[68:06]

And when you do that, the confusion falls away too. And the Mahayana is like, in the midst of this human stuff, wake up and discover a skillful relationship to it. And in that skillful relationship, this for your benefit, because you're in an intimate way, in your world and with all these, how can it be anything other than for everybody's benefit and your benefit? So in the Mahana, staying part of the world, not purifying in a singularity, but engaging

[69:09]

Purify the Self and then this way of separating the Self, this way of being absorbed in the wants and dislikes of the Self totally and the life is of benefit to others. In the Mahdiyana opening up this complete involvement and engagement. So not so much. In some ways you could say the consequence is the same. They're both for the liberation of the obedience. But there's a difference. methodology, a different sensibility.

[70:15]

So any comments or thoughts on that? Does that make any sense? Can you repeat the difference again? I will. It's funny, you know, we do use the word , which is generally translated as a little less or a vehicle. And then Mahayana is the greater flavor. But of course, Ketso came up with those terms. This is what you said, Ketso came up with those terms. And then it's not exactly accurate to say Thuru Badha, because it's only one of about seven schools of that style of practice. So it's, anyway, one is emphasized, emphasizes Related to the self. Work on yourself.

[71:17]

Because that's the problem for you. And then the other one says, you are intimately part of everything. So you're not just practicing for you. You're practicing for everyone and everything. And that, in fact, will support you. not being so selfish, which is one of your problems. When you're all cut off on yourself, you're compounding the issues that arise from self-centered consciousness. And it gives rise to almost like a different flavor of time. It's sort of the same in the early practices It's almost like a different sensibility, but similar outcome.

[72:27]

Claire? I think so. Maybe if the focus is on the self, it's the idea also to the way that you are going to help benefit all beings is if you just focus on yourself. If you just focus on yourself? Yeah. Well, it's like saying it's like when you have a toothpick, you know? When you have a toothpick that hurts a great deal, you pretty much can't think of anything else. You're just hurting too much. You know? So when we're focusing then we're caught up in the agitations of self. We're actually not so available to others. But as those agitations are skillfully related to and diminished and dissipated, then, that's what? Then we're available. So, that's kind of the ethic of efficacy and methodology of the Himalayas.

[73:34]

And the Mahayana says, even when you're suffering, open up. In fact, just the way I took that call and said, well, climbing the top of the pole isn't just do a lot of practice and become this very attentive and refined consciousness. Even in the throes of our karmic life, it has its place. It has its expression. It says something of the flavor of the Mahayana. What is practice? Ordinary mind. What is the teaching of practice? A dehydrogen lunch? Washer bowl. It's not outside of the ordinary experience and the ordinary activity. The ordinary experience and the ordinary activity are practice.

[74:38]

Can I help clarify it? Yes. Any other comments or questions? I talked to the Buddhist priest in Bangkok once, and he sees the goals as pretty much the same, that your goal is to save people from drowning. And if you don't know how to swim yourself, then you're not going to be able to save somebody else from drowning. So you've got to learn how to swim first, so that then you can save other people from drowning. So that's the way you see it. And then what would be that would be? That you want to save people from drowning, but you can't do it if you can't swim. OK. Well, that sounds more like a hinting on it. It's interesting because the notion of emptiness, that everything is a constructive reality.

[76:16]

So the notion of driving is a construct. And when we can see that we're constructing it, that we can also, like Mark Twain saying, you know, all these disasters in my life, and some of them actually happen, the rest are made up. Well, if you don't make up the disasters, that you won't have to live with them. If you don't make up the notion of drowning, you won't have to. Look at our world. What war we've ever fought actually profoundly made sense? Once it starts, in a strange way, you know, and the violence begins.

[77:18]

So violence begets violence. But what more could people have not sat down and said, let's listen deeply to each other. Let's listen deeply to each other's issues. Let's listen deeply to how we're constructing the world. And let's learn from it. What does it mean you want? Well, I want your land. Why? Well, your land will make me happy. So that's the nature of happiness, acquisitiveness. Constructed existence of the mockiness. The way we've constructed it, what it means to be taken apart. The notion that we run... So this is what you might call the Dharma Principle.

[78:40]

And if you're not because this principle is called the first principle. And guess what? In the very first koan in the Mahayana, in the Zen school, it says, Someone asks the great teacher, what is the first principle? And who asks it? The very emperor of China, the most powerful, the most empowered, influential, person with the greatest resources.

[79:42]

Each of us, each of us has this capacity in our lives. Each of us is endowed with this kind of empowerment. And we ask, what is the first principle? What was, as Suzuki Rose used to say, the most important thing? every time they say, the most important thing is, then we'll do something different. The most important thing is self-mind. The most important thing is attitude. The most important thing is doing practice. The most important thing is taking care of others. So the emperor asks Bodhidharma. Bodhidharma utter and thorough involvement in practice the unhesitating unhesitating commitment so that part of you that's deeply sincere in your endeavor asks that part of you that's willing to commit what's most important

[81:12]

asks that part of you that has this strange intuitive wisdom. This is Bodhidharma. And the Bodhidharma answers emptiness. What's the most important thing? Emptiness. What's the first principle? So, now that I've thoroughly corrupted what the Kohan actually says, I'll read it. In this translation, I'm going to ask Bodhidharma, what is the first principle of the holy teachings? Bodhidharma said, emptiness, no holiness.

[82:18]

Have you had your lunch? Wash your bowl. What's practiced for every mind is practiced. It's nothing other than all of this, every single part of it. The emperor says, Who is standing before me? Who can say that? What way does that come forth from our being? How do we get in touch without knowing? And Borgie Dorman says, Not knowing. The Emperor could not grasp his meaning.

[83:27]

I've never read this. It occurred to me when I read it now. It's because often it's translated as the Emperor did not understand. But if you think about it, it actually, the way he translated it says, he did not grasp it. He didn't. But I think more conventional would be the Emperor's a fall guy in the corner. What? What are you saying? Thereupon Bodhidharma crossed the river and went to the land of weight. What's the most important thing? What's the first principle of Christ?

[84:28]

Everything is. Nothing holy. Who can say such a thing? Don't know. Not knowing. The emperor did not understand and body do I'm not left. The moment passed. Of course there's another one. But still, there's another most important thing. There's another request to realize just that. That one, for now, has passed. Because there is no moment still. Everything is connected. Begin with this mind.

[85:38]

Even though we have a mind that's constantly thinking, there's a sign, identifies it as a car. Even though we have a perceptual process that says, we have a mind that's constantly knowing. That's how it operates. It's constantly constructed. What is it, see, the process of constructing instead of being bewitched, influenced by the constructs? If you think back to the coin we looked at earlier, when the monk was asked, do we trust the process of seeing the construct?

[86:55]

Or are you just caught up in a construct? So the very first case, the very first poem, the very first challenge of practice. When you're sitting with Zazan, can you see the mind that creates the constructs rather than being caught up in what's constructed? And who can do such a thing? The grand conceptualization is the great treasure of human consciousness, the capacity for work. This is our greatest gift. We can see ourselves doing our own thing.

[87:59]

I'm thinking about this. I'm constructing this notion. I have this attitude. I'm anticipating like this. I'm judging like this, concluding like this. I am saying this is good and this is bad, about myself, about others, So in the self-help school, this is the con that we get broken up.

[89:03]

And this is the con we never finish with. Because the mind is never done constructing. Wakes up in the morning, came up me at it, sense. Anyway. So, how would it penetrate in your bone and express You don't understand?

[90:08]

Well, you were saying that, well, we tried it, but it probably didn't take traction in your life. And I said, okay, well, now we've got another opportunity. So I have two practices. One is pause. deliberately breathe on it. Very deliberately breathe on it. And as you breathe on it, think of letting go of absolutely everything. Letting go of what you're thinking, letting go of what you're feeling, letting go of how you're constructing the world, letting go of how you're constructing yourself, letting go of what you think should happen next.

[91:09]

And then say, come back. In fact, this is a wonderful way to say, let go of the rear. And let the world reappear in the end. So that's one. So pause, release, say, what about it? And then the other one is, don't know. And you notice your mind, you know, turning away with something. Yeah, yeah, and this, and that, and that. What if I don't know? What if I'm not being so known? And if I just sit down, that would be much better. Oh, in that meeting, we should do this instead of that. Oh, I'm this kind of person. I should really be more like that. What if you didn't know all those things?

[92:23]

What if you didn't give those constructs such validation? Can you let the mind help not grasp the constructs of mind? force to catch the roller. Letting the mind not grasp at the current stroke of mind. Is that a sign? I don't know. What's the end? Plausible? I'm sure everybody will break all that into the game with even flight cards.

[93:32]

We need to sit open, not being able to sit 3,000 times each morning, instead of 3. Or say it all night, with a deep breath and a deep breath and a deep breath. You like to realize it takes us right back to where we started. mindfulness in the moment. And this is very much the flavor of Zen. It's like, we do the basic practice, but it's the entirety of the teaching. Because if you remember what you said, hitting on the practice with mahi on the mind. We're doing the basic practice, in doing the basic practice We're illuminating the universe. We're undoing all the constructs that we're putting together.

[94:38]

We're awakening all beings. OK? So next week, the class is going to be on Tuesday. Maybe I'll send you all an email for a reminder then. because I have to be somewhere. I have to go to the East Coast on Thursday. I'm probably for this, but just how it is. I'm climbing up a 100-foot pole. I'm going to a hospice dinner, a hospice event, in the hopes that we'll get some fruitful connections for this hospital. some ways my own constructs, my own notions, somehow this is a good thing to do. So I'm doing it.

[95:46]

And I acknowledge it comes from notions of what else can we do. that live in the world that we created. Can we see the constructs and live without grasping them as absolute realities? 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.

[96:42]

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