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. Good morning, everyone. Thank you to Matt for the intro and Nancy, the tanto, for the invitation. Of course, by extension, Dan Abbott. David Zimmerman. Nice to be back with you all. It's been a little while. How's everyone? Let's do what I would like. I don't know what this possible match, but I call it some things, different things at times, and I'm gonna call it today the Hollywood Square. You guys remember Hollywood Square? Right. And then everyone's in our case, the city center rectangles.

[01:06]

So you're going to be invited to unmute and then you look around your rectangles and you say hi to people. And then I want you to also not just the little rectangles, but the big rectangle of your community. I got muted I don't know but did people hear my instruction or not no where did okay I think I I think you heard the Hollywood square because I saw smiles okay we're calling it the city center rectangles so you go around and you say hi to the people in your rectangle area and then I want you to open up your viewpoint into the bigger rectangle of your screen so then also move screens and say hi make sense All right, let's do it.

[02:07]

Say hi. Hi. Good morning. Good morning. A lot of people. Good afternoon from the East Coast. Hi, Chris. Hi, Tim. Hi, Marjorie. Hello. Good afternoon. Good afternoon. All right. Activity to silence for your part, not for me.

[03:12]

So it sounds like we can go back to muting everyone, please. As we can tell, everyone's very excited to interact with people. You know, at the beginning of the pandemic, we were talking about my sitting group, meditation group, Access to Zen, how when we are sheltering in place, how it's a little bit like going into Sashim, when you say, right, you're isolated, you're all by yourself, you just have your own mind and your refrigerator or whatever. your desk or whatever that is your go-to, Netflix or whatever, but then you mostly, or you're with just a few people, like in Sashim, you know, a person to your left or right, and you have certain ways of interacting with them, and because of the isolation, there's a real sense that we get to really see how much of it is our way of relating to things.

[04:25]

So the silence and the quiet of sheltering in place. It brought a pause for us. And because of the obvious reason for it, the pandemic, and then the crises that we could see on top of that in the Black Lives Matter movement, the anti-Asian animus, the economic impact, especially to the lower classes, the access to food and toilet paper to certain communities, right? So we started to really reflect on what is it that is of value to us? What's important to us? Now, we're coming out of the pandemic. And hopefully, Given that we've had time to pause and reflect, we're gonna be intentional about how we're gonna manifest these values that we've had a chance to really reflect or hopefully to reflect on.

[05:40]

I remember some time in the early part of the pandemic at Oprah Winfrey, was gonna do some show about it and she said, I'm gonna interview people, this is my memory, I'm gonna interview people who have reflected and have some sense of how the pandemic, how this condition has changed them. And then she was like, I don't wanna talk to people who hasn't changed, right? The quality of reflecting and having a sense of the importance of the moment. right, of the situation that the whole world, about ourselves and the whole world are in is important. So today I wanted to share, since we're coming out of the pandemic, and I know that during that pandemic, many sanghas, A to Z included, really saw a rise in attendance from different places. And it's still, we can hear people from the West Coast.

[06:41]

But already I know Now that people are vaccinated can go out and now some places don't even have to wear a mask. The attendance has started to lower already because everyone's so excited to go out. You know, I watch the morning news local often for the weather. And then, of course, just before, just after the weather forecast is always the traffic forecast. And the bridges are like... long waits again. So there's a real sense that everyone is rushing and, you know, going back into the world. So I thought, I talked today about how our practice, just like when we went in, we really relied on our practice as a, or the framework of our practice to make sense of things. How do we take our practice now back into the world? So it's kind of like now we're going to come out of Sashin, right?

[07:43]

Or maybe we could just even call it a very long practice period. We've been in the last year, over a year. And so when you come out of Sashin, and I know much more in retreat, I will say, I get a little bit more intentional instruction on it. Some guidance on how to come out of retreat. So you could say that... best practices from meditation in particular, the three qualities of meditations that I'm going to talk about today that comes out of the Eightfold Path. So how do we take that out into the world? And I'm going to frame those in two main ways. And for me, a lot of instruction when we leave retreats or sashing is how to prevent and then how to also then how to preserve. So the two Ps of the coming out of the pandemic.

[08:44]

So I've been, last time I was here at City Center, I talked a lot about these Engage Four Noble Truths. And, of course, the Four Noble Truths, we all know, right? In life, there's suffering. These are classic definitions. In life, there's suffering. Second is what are the origins or the causes of suffering, Duga. The third is how can it be alleviated or ended or healed, as Thich Nhat Hanh would say. And then the fourth is the Eightfold Path, the development of the Eightfold Path. So... So the Eightfold Path, while there are eight, are broken up into three groupings. So the first grouping is called the wisdom grouping, and it's skillful. By the way, sama is the classic word in the, sama, excuse me, is a Pali word. And the classic translation is right.

[09:53]

However, it's a right as in, there is a sense of right as in proper. In the sense, and recently I heard a commentary or excuse me, an explanation of the commentary on it. And it's right as in if you go to if you want to go and milk a cow. Right. You would not go and pull on the tail to get milk. So that is not that's the wrong way to milk a cow. Whereas if you pull on the udders, then you're going to. get milk, so that's the right way. So this Theravon monk was making the point that even though these days we like to have other framings of amsama, right is, that's what's mean by right. So right in a sense of more like appropriate, you could say. Skillful is what I've been going with, and I still think that's useful. Just wanted to put that out. So again, classically the right, or I'm gonna use skillful today.

[10:58]

So skillful, Understanding and skillful thinking is part of the wisdom third. And skillful thinking is essentially understanding karma. Excuse me. Skillful understanding is essentially understanding karma and understanding the Four Noble Truths. Skillful thinking, where the word is translated as thinking, is very much about kind of more like intention or motivation. Because it's very purposive thinking. What we think becomes our action, our behavior, which then takes us into the classically the second grouping, which is called the sila or the ethical conduct. I like to say compassionate conduct third. And that's skillful speech, skillful action and skillful livelihood. And then the last grouping is classically called the samadhi. grouping, which is skillful effort, skillful mindfulness, and skillful concentration.

[11:58]

Now, Gil Fransdahl does also consider this, what's classically called the samadhi grouping. He calls it, at times, he's called it the emotional and mental development section. So in that group, where really these are... They're meditative quality, but they're really to support us to mature or develop our emotional and mental. And also that grouping is sometimes considered the bridge. So we meditate. I'll just say that broadly now. Our meditation practices, that's an even better way of putting it, is really in service. So it's considered a bridge, right? So it goes where our wisdom is. or our values, as long as we understand wisdom, our values, right? How we hold the sense of the world and our motivation to how to enact those.

[13:01]

So our meditation practices support moving from thinking or the mind stuff to our behavior. It also is a bridge because when we behave a certain way, then it's a way for us to evaluate and be accountable to our values. Does that make sense? So I think it's a really wonderful way of looking at it. And so today, that's why I thought looking at these three meditative values, excuse me, three meditative qualities help support us to go out as we clarify how we want to move out and how we... into the world again out of the pandemic, and then how will we enact that in speech, behavior, and livelihood? All right. All right, so those three qualities, again, are skillful effort, skillful mindfulness, and skillful concentration is the classic steps.

[14:08]

I'm going to flip those today. And I'm going to broadly, very broadly say that these are the qualities I'm specifically talking about. Of course, each of these being one of the aspects of the A4 path have their own, you know, I could give whole talks on them. But for today purposes in general, this is what I'm going to define. And I'm going to define them as qualities, right, of awareness. So skillful concentration is that how is our awareness unified? How is awareness unified? And essentially through repeatedly focusing our awareness. Just keep coming back. And then second here is skillful mindfulness. So how is awareness stabilized? Again, through repeated steadying of awareness and directing.

[15:08]

awareness and then skillful effort is how is awareness choiceful and responsible like response able and also then sounds a lot like responsible which means accountable so transitions are hard right we want it like it's time to move back into the world we many of us i think want it um and yet change It's really hard and it can bring a lot of stress. Just like we, I think it's been talked about a lot. And I think there's some sense that we all can agree that, you know, they say you're not supposed to like, you know, get married or have a intimate, well, a deep intimate relationship, get married or some kind of unifying of relationship, change job or move in the same year. Cause while it's all good, it could be a very stressful. So in terms of using the qualities of coming out of sashim or retreat, say after a seven day, these are some of the recommendations that go with how to do that as first.

[16:26]

And this is in the first P is preventing. So preventing here, I'm gonna talk as restraining and as abandoning. Two ways to prevent. So first is restraint. And in some ways, it's a lot like the classic framing of the precepts, right? The classic framing of the precepts of how to work with the precept is you don't. Don't do this, you know, don't kill, don't lie, don't steal, don't misuse sexuality, don't intoxicate, right? So very much don't. So for instance, when you come out of the sheen, You don't want to re-engage too much and too quickly. You know, like after the, when you come out of Sachin, you don't want to be going to a party. I know that at times when I've left city center after a seven day and walks through Hayes Valley, there's just too many people, right?

[17:32]

And it's too noisy and it's too much stimulus, right? And even by the time I walk home, my ear would ring or I would get a headache. I know that when I've come out of my first one month, many years ago, right? I don't know what's going on, but I keep getting muted. Some factor is happening here. Somebody didn't like what I just said. I was saying how I came out of a one-month retreat, and I was at my sister's house, and I remember I kept asking her, my first one month, I should say. So I had a deep dive, and this was my first pool, my first jump into the retreat, long retreat pool. And I kept asking her, could you talk a little quieter, please? And I swore to you, I could hear.

[18:36]

The buzzing where the plugs go in, right? And the outlets. I swear to you, I could hear the electricity going there. And so we're very open and sensitive. So we don't want to overwhelm ourselves. And we're going to know that because we have headaches. We hear ringing. Sometimes you can be nauseous. You can be irritated. You can have emotional kind of bursts come up. So we want to... quiet and we also don't want to be too fast for the same reason so which reminds me you know I had a friend once tell me after she'd come out retreat and she was living in New York then you know she had to go to work right and she took the bus and it was one of those you know where she had drink about latte doing the whole retreat and so she had her and she is walking to the bus stop, right?

[19:41]

And then it's one of those where the bus comes up and she's like almost there. So she starts to run, but then the bus loads people and then it takes off before she could get on, right? She's close enough to get on. So she was very surprised, but she found herself throwing her latte at the bus as it was going. And she had been in a retreat, and then she was like, oh, you know, the Rinpoche had said, when you go out of retreat, if you miss a bus, remember, another bus will come. And she said, ah, it didn't help. It didn't help at the time, right? But just remember, another bus will come. So we want to slow down and remember that... there are other ways to be with where we're at and that opportunities will arise again. So skillful concentration then as a meditative quality is useful at this time when we go back out, right?

[20:54]

Because again, our awareness is unified. And so through repeated focusing, And to do that, you actually have to exclude. In concentration, we exclude things and we repeatedly keep our attention. Of course, there are two kinds of concentration. There's the broad concentration. But in general, to get the most quickest way to unify concentration is one-pointed concentration. So we exclude things and we keep coming back to, say, posture points. or breath points, right? In Zen, it's mostly a posture, really posture points. And then in Vipassana, the first, the main ones, main anchors is breath points, right? But in Zen, we also do that. Counting breath is a concentration practice, right? So, and then, not only do we just keep coming back to one point, we want to sustain that awareness, right?

[21:57]

Ritaka is like application of awareness or attention and then sustaining a vichara. You want to sustain your awareness, continuously focusing. And that supports, the reason you want concentration first is to support skillful discernment. Don't forget that the instruction of how to practice with the first noble truth is to investigate. So in investigation, we need to be discerning. What are we investigating? How are we investigating? And so how are we identifying clearly what is going on? That's investigation. That's the purpose of our investigation. What is exactly going on? So, and we also then, it works well for the wisdom factor, right? What is going on? What is happening here? What is, how is my world being framed? And then, what is the motivation?

[22:59]

Skillful thinking is really about motivation, really. What is the purpose of, purpose towards wholesomeness, classically, towards goodwill, towards non-harming, and towards, against hate, green, good delusion, basically, right? So, now... And then we want to see how does our motivation, our understanding of motivation align with our behavior? Concentration helps us to kind of clarify that. And we can see this, right, in our practice, because what makes a Zen person? On the surface, it looks like a Zen person wears Zen clothing. And perhaps it lives in a Zen center or reads Zen books.

[24:02]

In my mind, I'm a Zen person. For many years, in my mind, I was a Zen person. And then when it came to practice, I saw, well, it actually is how do I practice in a way that exemplifies the idea of Zen? And then how does my behavior aligns with my understanding of practice of, in this case, a certain way of practicing that we define as Zen, right? So, for instance, you know, so much of practice is really about comportment, especially with priest training. And I really got the sense of this when I was in Asia. There's much more of a sense of it as very strictly part, in part, by the way, because we could only wear our priest clothing, right? Either in your okesa or you're in your karomo or you're in your samuge.

[25:08]

That's the only three ways of wearing clothes 24-7. You even technically should sleep in your kimono, right? And so the clothing is how do you take care of the clothing? How do you wear your clothing? You know, things have to be proper. One time for the priest, you know, so, you know, our, our belch is this long kind of cord people for the people don't know. And of course, at some point that it meets, it was a, it was a string that it made into a, long loop, basically. And so there's at one point where there's, you know, you can see where it fits. And when we go to tie it, ideally, it should be underneath that knot right in front so that it doesn't show. That place that's, you know, not spooked. Right?

[26:09]

Right? People know that, right? Right? So one time mine was like about this many inches over. And I got sent back to my room to retie my belt because it was showing. And then when I practiced in the nunnery, the Zen nunnery in Vietnam, it was much more about how do you sit in Vietnam. right? And not even, we're not talking about in the Zendo or something, right? Like we had a lot of visitors because it's part of Asian culture to go visit monasteries. So, you know, like one time I crossed my leg like we do in the West, right? Of course, some of it's gender based without a doubt. But anyways, I crossed my leg under my robes, you know, but they, someone went and flicked my foot off because nuns do not sit that way. So, In Japan, I mean, not to just put it on gender thing, but in Japan, maybe you could say the reverse gender thing.

[27:13]

I'm not quite sure on this one. In my samugi, when we were working, I would often walk around with my hands in my pockets. Because that's just like how I walk around, right? In fact, I prefer men's pants because they have pockets. I just like to put my hands in my pocket. And again, I was like, that is nuts. How you should be walking around, right? Putting your hands in your pocket is too slack. It's too casual. So walk around like this. That's how you're supposed to walk around, even though you're transitioning from work practice to, you know, to go put on your roast or the next evening service. All right. So behavior is part of it. And of course, on a certain level, it's to reflect. our mindfulness of what we're doing, awareness of what we're doing, and as a reflection not only of the calmness of our mind, but also it reflects that we are living by a certain set of behaviors that are based upon the precepts.

[28:22]

The reason in Asia that if you're ordained... People don't really understand if you're not wearing your robes. And if you're ordained and living in those countries, like I was saying in Japan, right? You only wear three things. You don't get to wear jeans or if you're practicing at a monastery, right? And in Vietnam, it was the same thing. And nuns, you know, we didn't even change outfits. It's just by how many layers you put on top, right? So and those are always very color coded, of course. So it's about to show that you have taken the vows to live by the precepts. And the reason for that is that there's a lot about when we talk about like masks, about safety and stuff, that there's a sense that When people know that you're living by the precepts, that you are a safe person for them.

[29:29]

Not that I'm, you know, just living by the precept. It's because then people know that it is safe to be with me because I don't lie. I don't cheat. I don't steal. I don't speak healthily in a harmful way, right? I don't cloud my mind. So skillful concentration essentially helps us to unify our awareness. And so pausing is part of that, certainly. It helps us to say, okay, right here, right now, what is going on? Pause and be present and aware and investigate what's going on right here. So when we go back into the world, then to prevent being overstimulated, we just build in causes and we slow down.

[30:30]

We just remember to slow down. Now, the second way of working with preventing is to abandon when you have overdone. So when noticing, say, symptoms of headaches, or ringing in the ear, or that you're so tired suddenly, or emotional outbursts, right? Then you want to make space for it. And you want to attend to that. You want to, again, use, you kind of use the one where you go back to quiet and pause. And you don't push through it. You abandon not, attending to what is needed here and now. And I think that's a lot of what happens when we go back into the world. We're pulled by our desire to, you know, be stimulus, to stimulate it because that's what things are asking us to do.

[31:33]

And, you know, we want it, but we have to like pace ourselves to go back in. So in a banding of a meditative quality that's really helpful is skillful efforts. So again, in the samadhi section or the emotional and mental development section, skillful effort is actually considered like the bridge also between skillful concentration and skillful mindfulness. It's a factor that transitions us from preventing to preserving also. So there's a story from, this is from, more talk about in the Vipassana community. So it's a story about, here it goes, three boys go to a park to play. While walking along, they see a tree with flowering tops and decide they want to gather the flowers. But the flowers are beyond the reach even of the tallest boy.

[32:38]

Then one friend bends down and offers, I'm going to throw in mixed pronouns just to try to be more inclusive here. One friend bends down and offers their back. The tall girl climbs up but still hesitates to reach for the flowers from fear of falling. So the third person comes over and offers their shoulder for support. The first boy, standing on the back of the second girl, then leans on the shoulder of the third person, reaches up, and gathers the flowers. In a simile, the tall boy who picks the flower represents concentration with its function of unifying the mind. But to unify the mind, concentration needs support, the energy provided by right effort, which is like the girl who offers her back.

[33:42]

It also requires the stabilizing awareness provided by mindfulness, which is like the person who offers their shoulder. When right concentration receives the support, then empowered by right effort and balanced by right mindfulness, it can draw in the scattered strands of thought and fix the mind firmly on its object. Well, that's how they work together. And as you can see, Skillful effort is the support or the bridge. So from the place of a unified attention and concentration and stabilized awareness, which is mindfulness, which I'll talk about in a minute, we're able to respond in body, speech, and mind from wisdom more easily. Again, transition is hard and it can bring up strong emotions.

[34:43]

For instance, just a couple days ago, right, we were told now we don't have to wear masks. Literally, just a couple days ago. And again, on morning TV, when the story came out, you know, they were also interviewing our local people. And, you know, one person was like, oh, not so fast. I'm going to wear my mask a little bit longer, you know. I'm still afraid, right, and I'm anxious. And so even though now there's a shift, this change that most of us have been going, you know, or many people have been waiting for the time in which we didn't have to wear a mask. And by that, I don't mean we don't understand the value, but just more that we feel like we can have more interaction, that we can see people, right? And then... You know, the commentary on the morning news was like, yeah, well, you know, I'm fully vaccinated. And just this weekend, I went out to have lunch with my good friend for the first time in a restaurant.

[35:45]

And, you know, and we didn't have our mask on. And then people were looking at me. And I feel shamed, you know, because, well, I'm used to when people look at you, it's like, why aren't you wearing your mask? So the shift can bring up really, even though, again, intellectually, we might understand it. we're okay with making the shift because it's based on science foretold, you know, it's going to bring up conflicting and strong emotions. So skillful effort is how do we use our attention and energy to behave with wisdom. Again, I'm defining skillful effort here as awareness, which is choiceful and responsible. choiceful and responsible because it's choiceful because we do have intentional energy right our energy is not just the whole point to making it skillful is that we're choiceful about it and also that we're responsible we're accountable for it

[36:52]

So again, skillful effort as a bridge, it also is a good shift from the two peaks of coming out of the pandemic. It helps us to have a sense of responsibility to both prevent and preserve, you could say. And again with masks. In the past, we think it's somebody who's not responsible when they don't wear masks. And that when we wear masks, we're being responsible, not only for us, we're not just protecting ourselves, but we're protecting others. And now, you know, they said, and again, that was very clear. So are you saying when we don't wear masks, right? And that we can now not wear masks in not only outdoors, but indoors and in not huge crowds, but small crowds, right? And remember the one, the question is like, well, how can I trust people? Because they're vaccinated.

[37:57]

So how can I trust that the people in the crowd, so you're saying, I don't have to wear a mask if I'm vaccinated for any reason now or any place except train, planes, and automobiles, right? Or excuse me, train, planes, and buses, right? So how can I trust that the other people that are in masks are vaccinated? And the answer that I heard based on science, according to that news program, is that the onus is on now on the people who are not vaccinated because they're the one that are not protected. And so they're the one taking the risk because they're not protected. So even with this, you know, we don't have to be dualistic about it. It isn't about what I do or what you do. Again, in some instances, even though I'm vaccinated, it is asked that I wear a mask in small, confined, where air circulation is not so good.

[39:10]

So again, on planes, on BART and such. And then we're also asked that even though you're vaccinated, you want to make sure that you've waited the two weeks after you're vaccinated. one Johnson and Johnson or you're two weeks after your second one of the others, right? So until you're fully vaccinated, right? And you know that it's the whole incubation period, I suppose that's what it is, has taken an effect. So next we go to preserving, right? So first we want to prevent as we come out. And now we're preserving. And I'm going to talk about it in two ways, one as remembering and one as cultivating. Here we're gonna talk about skillful mindfulness as a third quality of meditation, of awareness practice. Mindfulness, so the word sati, samasati here.

[40:10]

Sati, of course, means to remember. And this, of course, points much more towards the practice of mindfulness, not so much the quality of mindfulness. So, you know, to remember. What are we to remember? Again, in that first one month, and it was at Spirit Rock many, many years ago, just before I went to Tassahara, in fact. And, you know, I don't know how it is now, but in those times at Spirit Rock, every day they would do metta practice in the afternoon. And so for the kindness meditation, loving kindness meditation, and so it's, In general, metta and the brahmapaharas are supposed to be heart-opening practices. And then also, of course, in retreat, as you get more and more concentrated, the result of concentration is much more calmness and tranquility.

[41:12]

And then with insight, you become much more open. So we feel very vulnerable and open. And as we are coming down to the end of the retreat, I had gone into my practice discussion interview, and I was like, you know, how could you guys? You know, I'm like, I'm like a blob now, and I'm so tender, and I'm so vulnerable. And just the thought of going back into the cold, cruel world, because people are not kind out there, and you know, how could you do this? What am I supposed to do, you know? And I'm going on and on about it, and then he's like, well, do you want to hear how you could? And I was like, yes, yes, of course. He says, remember. Remember, when you're out there and you feel overwhelmed by the world, maybe someone's been mean to you or you find something difficult to be with, you bring up the feelings you have here, the feelings when you do metta.

[42:26]

Maybe say a phrase of metta. So you just remember, you bring back up the things that you have developed here. And it's the same. We know this for those of us who've been to many retreats. And this is also why we go back to retreats after retreat. There are qualities in retreat that we develop. And by the way, there are not qualities that we don't already have. It's just that in retreat, there is quiet and slowness of container to help us connect to them much more easily. And once we have, of course, when you have had that in a much more deeper and sustained way, then you become much more confident that it is always present. And you start to develop the way to connect to that in a much more quickly and sustainable.

[43:28]

And again, you're confident that that's what it is. That's part of identifying that this actually is ease. This is joy. This is self-kindness. I think for at least my experience and many people I've heard, learning kindness for ourselves by slowing down or by not judging ourselves is huge. And so when you go out in the world and you find yourself, others unkind to you or self-unkind to you can remember. I remember when I was able to be kind to myself or I remember not to accept unkindness and take it in and just leave it there. Then again, I can find the centeredness. I can find the wholesomeness and the wellness that is present. So mindfulness also, right? I'm going to define it here not only as awareness that stabilizes, right?

[44:32]

by studying awareness, centering and studying awareness. But it also is a kind of awareness that includes everything. Whereas concentration excludes, mindfulness includes. Mindfulness, you open up. Now, but it's not just like a opening up. It's actually an inclusive awareness, an opening of awareness that... True, it's non-judgmental by embracing things and allowing for things, but it actually is also one that directs. It directs. Concentration focuses on something, but mindfulness is the one that directs it. Mindfulness is the one saying, no, don't focus on how annoying X, Y, and Z is out there. Focus here on your breath. Focus here on forgiveness. Focus here, right? Mindfulness said, no, no, not over there, over here.

[45:35]

Or no, no, too much here. Now open it up or bring it closer. So mindfulness was inclusive. It's a, I like to call it like the manager, right? Or the maitre d' of a restaurant, right? The manager of a restaurant. It directs how things would flow towards the purpose of what is happening, right? So mindfulness then is also incredibly relational because it's always in relation to something. You're mindful that your left foot goes, right? But next to the door, left foot goes in first. You're mindful that the relation of this body outside of the space in which we are ceremoniously zazaning And in this movement, I am entering into a relationship that's different than this one, or I'm going to be different here.

[46:37]

So it's relational, and also it's with objects, and of course it's with things, and it's with people, and it's with situations. And in particular, mindfulness in terms of the Eightfold Path is very much about how is it that our speech and our action is in alignment. I like to say that Zen practice is community practice. Because we're always, you know, like we don't do walking meditation for ourselves. Unlike in Vipassana, you get to choose where you walk, you get to choose if it's long or short, you get to choose if you go left or right, right? we're like walking with each other in the same quadrant and are aware of how much, you know, you don't want to be breathing on someone's neck in front of you, nor do you want to be going too slow so someone else is, you know, we're watching for that distance between who's in front of us and who's behind us.

[47:48]

When I used to give Zazan instruction there, I always say, you know, the reason we turn right, all the time, especially when we get on and off the ton, is that we don't hit each other, right? We're being careful this way. A lot of it's crowd control, admittedly, but it's also a way to set up so that there's, minimizes harm, right? So mindfulness is implicit in that it's about relation. And of course, being a bodhisattva, it is about relationship. If we're a bodhisattva, can become enlightened, but we forego that until we're all enlightened together. So that obviously is very relational. And I don't know, I've had this thought since I thought of this a while back, and I'll share with you, because often when I say this, people look and kind of, hmm, so this is a theory, and see if it works for you.

[48:54]

But if... A bodhisattva is always relational. Then can we be lonely? A bodhisattva can never be lonely. Of course, you can feel lonely, mind you. That's a different thing. I don't know. That's something that's been percolating. All right. I want to end with Suzuki Roshi. Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind, a chapter called The Quality of Being. The purpose of Zazen is to attain the freedom of our being physically and mentally. According to Dogen Zenji, every existence is a flashing into the vast phenomenal world. Each existence is another expression of the quality of being itself. I often see many stars early in the morning.

[49:58]

The stars are nothing but the light which has traveled at great speed many miles from the heavenly bodies. But for me, the stars are not speedy beings, but calm, steady, and peaceful beings. We say, in calmness, there should be activity. In activity, there should be calmness. They are the same thing. To say calmness or to say activity is just to express two different interpretations of one fact. There is harmony in our activity, and where there is harmony, there is calmness. This harmony is the quality of being, but the quality of being is also nothing but its speedy activity. When we sit, we feel very calm and serene. But actually, we do not know what kind of activity is going on inside our being.

[51:02]

There is complete harmony in the activity of our physical system, so we feel the calmness in it. Even if we do not feel it, the quality is there. So for us... There's no need to be bothered by calmness or activity, stillness or movement. When you do something, if you fix your mind on the activity with some confidence, the quality of your state of mind is the activity itself. When you are concentrated on the quality of your being, you are prepared for the activity. Movement is nothing but the quality of our being. When we do zazen, the quality of our calm, steady, serene sitting is the quality of the immense activity of being itself. Thank you for your attention. Thank you for listening to this podcast offered by the San Francisco Zen Center.

[52:08]

Our Dharma talks are offered at no cost, and this is made possible by the donations we receive. Your financial support helps us to continue to offer the Dharma. For more information, visit sfcc.org and click giving. May we fully enjoy the Dharma.

[52:28]

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