This podcast is offered by the San Francisco Zen Center on the web at sfzc.org. Our public programs are made possible by donations from people like you. For some time I've been attempting to observe... the body and the breathing. I've been trying to clearly observe the breathing body and the body breathing. I've been contemplating the relationship between

[01:01]

The body posture and the breathing posture. The shape of the body and the shape of the breath. The body process and the breathing process. I've been devoted to contemplating this for some time. I would like to actually, I hope that me telling you this might make, not make, but might encourage you to consider if you would like to devote your attention to your body posture and breathing. actually when I'm in body I mean body as it seems to appear right now and the breath as it seems to appear right now and the relationship between breath and body now and here I remember that I told you that I've been

[02:40]

attempting to practice this for some time. I was talking about the past. So now I'd like to mention that right now I'm attempting to contemplate the breathing process. And I'm also contemplating how the body is going through changes right now in relationship to the breathing process. Right now, the person who's talking to you is trying to

[03:52]

and actually somewhat successful at noticing that he's exhaling right now. I'm about to end my exhale. Since I talked to you last, I went through an inhale. And since I talked to you last, I went through another inhale. And I can talk to you while I'm exhaling. I might also be able to talk to you while I exhale. I mean, while I inhale. But I have not done so. I've been talking to you on exhales. Right now I'm talking to you and I'm also mindful of my breathing.

[05:09]

I'm exhaling. And I remember that just a moment ago I was mindful of an inhale. I wish for the rest of this Dharma talk to continue to observe the process of breathing. I invite you to join the contemplation

[06:21]

of breathing during this time together. I am also wishing and practicing mindfulness of posture right now. I'm aware of sitting and I'm attempting to sit upright. Part of what I mean by upright is a posture that is making space

[07:25]

for the breathing process. Part of upright posture is to, yeah, providing a posture which supports and accommodates and embraces the breathing process. Contemplation, the observation of the body and the breath interacting, the observation of the way the body and breath are interacting, was encouraged by the historical Buddha thousands of years ago.

[08:39]

this contemplation of body and breathing. The Tathagata, the thus come one, the Buddha, said that this contemplation is the beginning of the direct path freedom from suffering and distress. It's a direct path for beings to become free of affliction and realize peace and happiness. This is the

[09:48]

beginning this is the basic frame of reference for the path to freedom from suffering basic frame of reference body breathing breathing body this frame makes possible further contemplations which bring the process of liberation to completion The suggestion is this is the kind of basic frame, the body breathing. And now I'm practicing sitting and I'm attempting to sit in a way that really lives with the breathing and I'm wishing to sit in a way so that the breathing can really live.

[10:50]

And I'm particularly focusing on the breathing now and the body now and here. And as the ancient teachers said, How about you? Do you wish to devote your precious attention which can be devoted to so many wholesome things? I'll only mention the wholesome. Do you wish to devote your precious attention to contemplating the body, your own body? Now, do you wish to ardently, alertly contemplate

[12:14]

your body posture and the postures of others? Do you wish to contemplate your breathing process and the breathing process of others? Now that I've told you that the Buddha says this is a fundamental frame of study to realize happiness and freedom, do you wish to try this practice? And do you wish to practice it now? this room this building is provided for us to contemplate our body now here it's an opportunity which we're supporting each other to practice it is a practice opportunity

[13:48]

And this practice opportunity allows for a sense of humor. It allows for being ardently, alertly mindful. And it allows for being playful. It allows for being relaxed and playful with the body and the breathing. It allows for being creative with the body and the breathing. It allows to waking up to how the body and the breathing are being creative together right now. I just finished an inhale and now I'm exhaling.

[14:56]

How about you? May I make it clear that of course it's all right if you inhale when I'm exhaling and vice versa. It's to pay attention to what your body and breath are doing. Not what they're supposed to be doing for now. For now, it's about what They are how they are, not how they should be. The Buddha is saying how you want your body and breath to be free, if you want your body and breath to be free and at peace, if that's what you want for yourself and others, this is a way to that. To contemplate body and breath process now.

[16:05]

May I share with you my joy in the times when this is being practiced by me. And you can answer that on an exhale or an inhale. May I? Part of what I'm happy about in this practice is that it can be done pretty much all day. almost all night long it cannot be done however this practice cannot be done I don't think it can be done in dreamless sleep or in dreamless awakeness there has to be a dream

[17:29]

in order to practice this contemplation. And we have a dream, so we can practice it. And the dream we have is the dream of a body and the dream of breath. We can see the dream image. We can see the appearance of the body and the appearance of the breath. It's the appearing body and appearing breath that we start with. And this is available when sitting in a meditation hall. Now. And it's a practice you can do when you stand up in the meditation hall later. you can do this practice, you can join this practice when you walk out of the meditation hall.

[18:37]

You can do it all day long. I think it's possible. to try to talk to you as I inhale I just finished the inhale and I tried to talk to you but I it was too hard so I didn't on the exhale I'm not that it's impossible to speak on inhales, but I just noticed that I wanted to try and I couldn't at that time anyway.

[19:51]

This is something I discovered just recently while I was talking to you. I made the discovery because I was watching what I was doing. is watching the relationship between posture, breathing, and speech. Some people, in a friendly way, come to me and ask me, if I would help train them in postural awareness they asked me to give them feedback on their posture and I often say okay I will do so if I see it opportunity so then I

[21:11]

observed their posture I watched them stand and walk and sit I don't too often see people reclining but I I might ask them if I saw them reclining would you like me to train you your your meditation not when you're reclining also and they might say no thank you usually they want me to give them feedback on their sitting posture and walking posture and standing posture. So I watch and I watch and I sometimes feel when I watch someone, I'm not sure if they're being mindful of their posture. And when I'm not sure if they're being mindful of their posture, I sometimes say to them, can I ask you a question?

[22:20]

Often, upon an exhale, I ask them that. And then I inhale sometime after that, waiting for their response. And if they say yes... Were you mindful just now when you came into this room? Did you mean to come in with your head bent forward? Did you notice that you were looking down at the floor? I usually sit here during meditation and I face out into the room so I can Watch the people's posture. So, I don't try to watch it, but I just happen to see them, and I see them come down the stairs there, and I notice quite a few people, when they come down the stairs, instead of coming down the stairs with their head up, they bend forward, partly to look at the stairs, which is understandable, because you don't want to fall down the stairs.

[23:38]

I don't want to. So I try to come down the stairs without looking down at the stairs. I try to keep my body upright and be aware of my breathing while I'm going down the stairs. It requires training to be able to do so, and I'm happy to do it. When I see other people coming down, bent over, I sometimes ask them later, did you mean to be bending down? And we have a conversation on inhales and exhales. And sometimes I even suggest, if you're afraid to go down the stairs without bending forward, why don't you try to go down standing upright and hold the railing? There's a railing. If you're afraid that you can't do it without falling, hold the railing. And then see if you can walk upright as you go down the stairs without bending forward to look at them. They are lighted, by the way, but... I sometimes talk to people like that about their posture and if when they're sitting to I sometimes check their posture to see how their spine is and I sometimes make a suggestion and I think what I'm suggesting when they're sitting is a posture that will be more make more space for the breathing activity if I were to bend forward now I'll show you

[25:11]

And while I was bent forward, I was watching the breathing. I really felt the breathing, the body was uncomfortable. And the breath wasn't uncomfortable, but the breath was... Now I feel like my breath has a lot more playground, this upright posture. Before I felt like the playground was being squished. And the body kind of was feeling sorry for the breathing process. And it said, how much longer are we going to be down here? Is this good for you? So now I set up and I feel more upright. I feel more joyful to meditate in my posture and breathing. So when I see people bent into those postures, I sometimes suggest a different posture that might accommodate their breathing. And then sometimes I ask them later, how is that? How is that suggestion to you?

[26:21]

Because I don't talk to them in the meditation hall, and they sometimes say, well, it's helpful, or whatever, and we talk about it. I mentioned also recently that I've been watching, particularly, I've been watching people walk uphill So walking downhill, especially downstairs, people sometimes look forward at the stairs. Walking uphill, I notice people also bend forward. Even going upstairs, they bend forward. They're not so much afraid of falling down, I imagine. I don't know exactly the reasons why people bend forward when they're going uphill. But when I am... devoting my attention to watching my breathing, when I remember to watch my breathing and I'm walking uphill, I often notice that I forgot to stand upright walking uphill.

[27:28]

Remembering the breathing reminds me that this is not the posture I want to walk up the hill. I don't want to walk up the hill bent over. I want to walk up the hill kind of mindfully I want to walk up the hill mindful of my breathing. And again, when I succeed in being mindful of my breathing, I often notice that I wasn't mindful of my posture. And then I become mindful of my posture. And my posture, generally speaking, comes upright. And then I enjoy walking up the hill for a while with my upright posture and breathing until I forget. And then maybe start bending forward again. There's something about going uphill that there's some deep habit of bending forward. And I must say, I watch people going up the hills, bent forward, and it hurts me. I feel sad that they're walking like they're heading towards death.

[28:32]

It's sad. And I know that to come upright will take attention probably. Most people do not have the habit of walking uphill upright. And again, stairs. Going up and down stairs. Again, not too many people going down incline, bend forward, but some do that too. So I'm just saying, I watch myself and I'm saying we all have this opportunity walking up and down, walking level, we have the opportunity to practice the way that the Buddha said is the path, is the beginning of the path to freedom from suffering. This mindfulness of posture and breathing is not just to have good posture and nice breathing process. It's to set the stage for wisdom. If we skip over mindfulness of posture and breathing,

[29:38]

processes of examination the nature of things is not as it's not well-rounded the process of contemplating and discovering ways of skillfulness to relate to people does not have the best possible start Some people can stand me telling a story which I told not a thousand times, a story that the Buddha told. The Buddha said, once upon a time, there was an acrobat. Excuse me, a digression from this story. Do you? Was there really an acrobat once upon a time? Did this story actually happen?

[30:45]

Or is the Buddha kind of a writer of fiction, a speaker of fictions? I don't know. Anyway, the Buddha said once upon a time there was an acrobat and an acrobat apprenticed. Apparently the acrobat was a male and the apprentice was a female. And it seems like the female was his daughter. A family tradition. His daughter was his apprentice. She was learning from him and her name was, according to the Buddha, her name was Frying Pan. Maybe the Buddha was walking along and saw these acrobats and overheard this conversation you're about to hear on an exhale. Or I should say, it's going to be spoken to you on an exhale.

[31:49]

You might hear it on an inhale. You can watch. You can hear on inhales. Quite easily. Maybe. Maybe. So the acrobat says to his apprentice, frying pan, now you take care of me and I'll take care of you and then we can do this acrobatic feat, which they were called bamboo acrobats, bamboo pole acrobats. So I imagine that either the acrobat held the bamboo on top of his head on his chin, or maybe in his hands, which is most dramatic. Maybe the chin. Anyway, he had a chin, nice chubby chin. And then his daughter would climb up on his shoulders.

[32:54]

And they would do this, and then she would climb up to the top, I guess, and people would clap and give him money. So he said, now you take care of me and I'll take care of you and we'll be able to do this acrobatic feat successfully and safely. And the apprentice says to her teacher, excuse me, Master, but I think it's the other way around. I think if you take care of yourself and I take care of myself, then we'll be able to take care of each other and perform this feat. success safely that's the end of the conversation and then the Buddha comments the apprentice was correct first take care of yourself so that you can then take care of others and how do you take care of yourself by contemplating your body and your breathing

[34:03]

contemplations which I haven't brought up yet based on caring for our own posture we can help other people with their posture if I go around watching other people I'm not going to be as helpful observing them as I would be if I'm watching my own my own posture and own breathing from there from that I will be better able to observe and assist others in caring for theirs, and they for me. I see the kitchen leaving the room, which means that I've been talking for a while. Not that they're doing a walkout, but they're going to the kitchen to work on lunch. And what I've said so far is setting the stage for wisdom, which I was going to talk about, but I don't think there's time to get into the next part of my talk.

[35:18]

But even though there's not time, maybe I will on a few exhales. But before I do, I just want to say again, All day long there's a body appearing. All day long there's breath appearing. All day long there's this opportunity for contemplation which is said to be deeply, highly auspicious. And the word auspicious means conducive to success. This practice is conducive to success in becoming free of suffering. and realizing peace and ease. It is auspicious. We have the opportunity. We will continue to have this opportunity as long as we're alive. Or maybe we'll live a little bit beyond when we're breathing.

[36:27]

But basically, as long as we're breathing and alive, we have this opportunity to practice an authentic form of contemplation that leads to peace. The next big step in the process, once we're well situated in mindfulness of our posture and breathing, the next big step could be summarized. condensed into a simple story, which is one of the basic stories of the Zen tradition. It starts out like this. Once upon a time, the world honored one, the Buddha,

[37:31]

ascended the teaching seat and sat. Manjushri Bodhisattva, the great Bodhisattva who is a statue of this Bodhisattva in the center of this meditation hall. Manjushri means pleasant splendor. She's the Bodhisattva of perfect wisdom. So the Buddha ascends the seat and sits and the Bodhisattva, perfect wisdom, strikes the gavel and announces, clearly observe the teaching of the teacher, of the greatest teacher of Dharma clearly observed the teaching of the greatest teacher of the truth.

[38:41]

The teaching of the teacher of truth is thus. Then the world honored one, the Buddha got down from the seat. What the Buddha is teaching is thus. And another thing that comes to mind is that one of our ancestors said, if you want to practice thusness, or suchness, practice it without delay. And I think that's a good comment, along with the other comment.

[39:55]

But both comments, the other comment was, please look and see the teaching of the Buddha. The teaching of the Buddha is thus. The other person says, if you want to practice this, do it without delay. Don't do it later. Matter of fact, do it, I would say now, do it before now. Don't wait for now to do it. The teaching of thusness is there before there's a body or a breath or a now. Before the body appears, before the breath appears, before now appears, the teaching is being shown to us. Our body is present before we see it.

[40:57]

Our breath is alive before it appears. Now is reality before it appears. It's thus. This is the Buddha's teaching. The Buddha's teaching is before we see it. When we see it, it looks like a body, for example. Breath. Words. Now. If we take care of... It's appearances of body and breath. If we watch our own process and other processes as we get into it, we become ready to live without delay. Without the delay that our process, our cognitive processes create a delay. And we live in a delayed world of dreams.

[42:02]

But we must take care of this delayed world of dreams where there's a body breathing. We must be very compassionate to it and present with it in order to be ready to realize the room, the room, the room of Buddha's compassion before anybody thought about it. It also says in many places that the meditator sits and establishes contemplation or mindfulness in front of her. Because the reason for that is that things appear in front of us. what's appearing in front of us is not actually things but our mind but our mind looks like it's in front of us and if we take care of that we can become free of the deception that our mind is external to itself the mind appears as though it were external to itself

[43:30]

Inwardness appears as though it were outward. This is our normal conscious life. This is not dustness. However, it's not at all separate from dustness. In order to receive the teaching, We must take care of the appearance, the wonderful opportunity of the appearance of body breath and body breath interaction. We must not must. It's best if we observe what our breath is doing. If it's a long breath, it's good to notice that it's a long breath. If it's coming in, it's auspicious to notice it's coming in.

[44:48]

If it's going out, we're encouraged to notice it's going out. If it's long, notice that it's long. If it's short, notice that it's short. The Buddha doesn't actually say make it long. or make it short. The Buddha says, if it's long, know that it's long. If it's short, know that it's short. If it appears to be long, know that it appears to be long. This is auspicious for enlightenment, to know these things, which we can know. If we know these appearances and are mindful of these appearances, we can make discovery about these appearances. We can make the discovery that they're appearances and become free of appearances and realize what's there before appearances.

[46:10]

and live from there like the Buddhas one of the names for the Buddha is the thus you could say the thus gone one the thus come one or the thus one the Buddha is the Buddha is the living of our life before appearances and then the Buddha expresses this life before appearances in such a way that we who live in appearances can hear the instruction and the instruction is become mindful of body and breathing and train yourself in mindfulness of body and breathing of noticing what kind of breathing and becoming more and more consistent at that and finding out that you can live from mindfulness of these appearances of body and breathing.

[47:16]

And this will set up the possibility of the enlightened condition where you will be contemplating your life before your body and breath were born. We have a life prior to birth that the Buddhas realized and they speak to those of us who are born and dying and they give us these teachings about how to realize our life that's unborn our breath that's unborn this is the teaching which we can enter if we but I think it it seems that we have to not skip over anything like the image of water coming downhill. It fills the holes as it comes down, it doesn't skip over any holes and fill the next one.

[48:23]

It fills this hole and then when this hole is filled, it runs over and fills the next hole. We don't skip anything and we start with this basic thing. This sets the stage for all deeper understandings. And again, I just say now towards the end of this talk, when I try to give my life to this contemplation, I do notice that there are periods of unknown duration when I forget to practice it. I'm in a training process to make this consistent, and I'm not yet of this all the time. I don't want to frighten you by telling you how unmindful I am.

[49:24]

If I were to tell you how frightened I am, you might get discouraged. You might think, well, if he's been practicing so long and he still isn't able to do it all day long, what hope is there for me? I've been doing it just for a few weeks right actually just for a few minutes so I I don't want to discourage you but someone said to me recently referring to me if a person has been practicing so long still behaves like you He was referring to, not at that moment, but sometime in the past, he said, it kind of throws the whole enterprise up for question. It kind of throws the whole enterprise open for question.

[50:36]

And I said, yeah, this is an enterprise which is open to question. Open to question is good. This tradition is open to question. This tradition is saying, here's the tradition, and it's open to question. You are welcome to question it. But doubt's different. If doubt means that I don't want to question it anymore, it's not even worth questioning, then that's discouragement. But I hope, and I said to him, I hope you have the courage... to continue to question this tradition. This is what all the great ancestors did. They questioned the tradition. They questioned it. We have so many teachings of the great students questioning the Buddhas. They questioned it. The Buddhists didn't say, don't ask questions. Never. Some questions the Buddha didn't answer, but didn't say, stop asking questions.

[51:40]

So please question the tradition. Question the practice. I myself it's not that I don't question it I'm more question how can I encourage myself and others to be more consistent I don't feel I don't actually ask how come I'm not more consistent I don't ask that question when you could and I would say to you and I would say the same thing to myself if I asked I would say it's inconceivable why I'm so inconsistent I'm not going to be able to figure that out What I'm trying to do is not try to figure out why I'm inconsistent. I'm trying to find out how I can encourage myself to be more consistent. After I'm perfectly consistent, I could ask, why did I used to be so inconsistent? And I would say the same thing. It's still inconceivable. It's still inconceivable why it took you so long to become consistent. But congratulations, you made it. I aspire to be consistent.

[52:46]

The Buddhas actually arrive at a position where they're consistent at this practice. But it takes a long time. But even to do it a little bit is a splendid life at that moment. And when you practice that way, I say to you, as far as I know, you're practicing just like the Buddhas. They practice this way. They taught this way. They practice this way. And great teachers have also been inconsistent, like us. But they kept working at it. And they got really skillful. And they got really skillful means they got skillful at this. And they got skillful at helping other people perform great feats. Because they took good care of themselves, they could be kind and patient and nonviolent. with all kinds of difficult situations. But if we don't take care of ourselves, the ground of our non-violence and our patience and our generosity will be shaky.

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The other way around, if we do this practice, we'll have a very wholesome and living, not exactly, it's not stable, it's not solid, it's a living process of supporting skillful behavior. because we're taking care of what's being given to us. So the song today is... Heaven, I'm in heaven. And my heart beats so that I can hardly speak. And I seem to find the happiness I seek when we're out together dancing cheek to cheek. Thank you for listening to this podcast offered by the San Francisco Zen Center.

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Our programs are made possible by the donations we receive. Please help us to continue to realize and actualize the practice of giving by offering your financial support. For more information, visit sfzc.org and click Giving. May we fully enjoy the Dharma.

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