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. I forgot my clock, so I guess I'll just talk forever. Kadagiri Roshi, who was abbot here for a year. Could you sit in zazen posture, please? Yeah. Yeah. Just sit with your hand under your chin. It's a little odd. Yeah, that's fine. You can put your hand where you need to. You need to rest your head on your hand. Kadigiri Roshi, who was Abbot here for a year, he would give talks.

[01:14]

I had greatly admired Kadigiri Roshi and looked forward to his talks. And so for about the first 45 minutes to an hour, I was very enraptured and enthused. But then after that, the enthusiasm would start to wane, and then about an hour and a half. Keep thinking. That'll be the last point you'll make. And then you take a breath and go into the next one. So, a talk that lasts forever. Blanche had to be taken back to the hospital today. If you think, yesterday I mentioned that she fell, and, well, apparently, at the time she thought she didn't break any bones, but she did.

[02:19]

She either cracked or broke her femur. So I think they're working on it right now, or sometime this morning, this afternoon. You're going to operate on her? Apparently she's been on a half-fifth replacement. Oh, my goodness. Okay. Okay. So, you can hold Blanche in your hearts. In some ways, caring for others is a great benefit to our own practice.

[03:21]

Our usual tendency to be so caught up in ourselves, and then it's a sheen that's all intensified. Each ache in our body becomes extra significant. Yesterday I quoted this piece from Dogen. When myriad things are without an abiding self, One of the other translations says, without substance. But this statement's a little bit paradoxical. It seems almost like we're supposed to negate something or stop something in what's arising.

[04:36]

And the paradox is, it's actually the opposite. It's about experiencing the experience. There's a Zen teacher who said, if you have something, I'll give it to you, and if you don't have it, I'll take it away. And you know, literally the beauty of it is that it confines conventional logic. I already have it, how are you going to give it to me? I already have it. And if I don't have it, how can you take it away? I don't have it. So when we experience the experience, we receive what we already have.

[05:41]

whether that experience has a sense of abundance or lack. So I hope at this point in Sasheen that you're starting to experience some capacity for pause, some capacity to let the moment just be itself. This is, in some ways we could say, it stimulates a kind of virtuous cycle. We let the moment be itself, and it stimulates us to loosen up.

[06:51]

whatever way we're contracting, distracting, trying too hard. And then that facilitates more capacity to pause and experience. Presence. literally becomes more palpable. So I hope today you can find those moments. And remember, the moments are not perfect. It's not like, okay, this is the perfect situation. This is the perfect occasion. No, the moments arise. most of you have heard that Zen story.

[07:56]

You know, you're being chased by a tiger and then you jump off a cliff and you're holding on by a single root. The tiger's up above and the cliff's hundreds of feet high and then you see a strawberry and you taste the strawberry. Delicious. Those kind of moments in the midst of hearing the news about Blench. Maybe it reminds you of someone in your own life, or maybe it reminds you of your own fragility. So we will do a service at noon, and if you want, after the lecture, you can give the Eno, Gene, the name of someone, if you'd like to add them to it, a well-being ceremony.

[08:57]

as we experience the experience, we pass through the story we have. We pass through even the definition we have. And something is experienced that really is beyond words. It's beyond the label we give it. It's beyond the adjectives we give it. It's beyond the significance we give it. This is the depth of mindfulness, the depth of awareness. And each moment is there, offering that. And when it penetrates in that way, you know, Kastanahashi translates it as saying, it has no abiding self. the more thoroughly it's experienced, the less we can say about it.

[10:18]

Or it's clearer to us what we're saying about it is not the whole story. There's something beyond what we say. If we can start to see this interesting paradox in a human life, The story keeps arising for us. The story is so abundant. The story is so significant. But when we experience the experience, it goes beyond. When we experience the experience, something deep is nourished. Dogen says, and that nourishment continues.

[11:29]

If this virtuous cycle continues, that nurturance continues. And these moments of experiencing, they can have different characters. Sometimes we have a moment of deep experience that we wish we wouldn't. And yet, even as we wish we wouldn't, something in its nose, there was an authenticity to this moment. I think sometimes we have that relationship to practice. We'd rather not. But there's something about its authenticity that we can't refute.

[12:33]

Here's what David White, the poet, said about experiencing the experience. In a poem he called Opening of Eyes. It is the opening of eyes long closed. It is the vision of far-off things seen for the silence they hold. It is the heart after years of secret conversing speaking out loud in the clear air. It is Moses in the desert, fallen on his knees before the burning bush. It is the woman throwing away her shoes as if to enter heaven and finding herself astonished, opening at last, fallen in love with standing on the earth. All things are without substance.

[13:57]

In the yoga of awareness, when that happens with energy, the moment sparkles. There's a kind of innate affirmation. And then sometimes our mind rushes in to give it meaning. And then sometimes the mind is brought into quiet. And the interesting thing, the moment doesn't have to be of great content. It's how thoroughly it's met. That gives it this potency.

[15:11]

It gives it this capacity to declare what is. today. You know, as the tanto Rosalie was saying last night, now we're in the heart of Sashin. Now that you've made your accommodation to your new life, to let it be. to be willing to be this new life. So can you... Often it helps to slow down a little. And sometimes for the heck of it, it helps to speed up a little.

[16:19]

Like when you're serving. Can you make that great journey the whole way around the Zendo? to the abbot seat. Fast, but don't run. These ways, this great paradox that we set up all these prescriptions and conditions to initiate the unconditioned. This is how our life is. It's in the middle of the pressing urgencies of the world according to me that we discover something that goes beyond that.

[17:23]

And sometimes it arises out of our diligent effort. And then sometimes it just happens. John O'Donohue, an Irish poet, said, fluent. I'd love to live like a river flows, carried by surprise. Surprise of its own unfolding. the signs of the children almost seeing it, feeling it, hearing it.

[18:30]

And it resonates with some part of your being. It has a thousand stories, and it's just that energetic moment. So every day is a good day, but maybe this day can offer us this opportunity that we take. We're both the teachers saying, if you have it, I'll give it to you, and we're the recipient receiving it. In fact, we are giver, receiver, and gift.

[19:48]

Can it invite in its generosity, can it invite an accommodation of just being present? There's a story in the early suttas where Shakyamuni and his monks are walking along as they did most of the time when they weren't sitting, and someone approached him. I can't remember exactly the character of the person. It's in the sutta, but I can't remember it. But anyway, the person approaches Shakyamuni and says, I know you guys have a whole thing going, you know, you've got your robes, your saffron robes, and your begging bowls and all that, but I'm not interested. I just want the essence. could you just give me your whole spiel in a couple of sentences?

[21:11]

And Shakyamuni said, yes. In the seeing, just see. In the hearing, just hear. Just experience the experience. Uganzenji, using a few more words, says, and before incense offering, bowing, chanting Buddha's name, awareness. And then, can the world, can the rigors of Shashin, be held lightly. Even when you find yourself serving with a strange apprehension, walk the whole way round to the abbot seat, no, that would kill me.

[22:30]

It's such a dangerous chasm there between here and there. the mysterious workings of our human being. You take a break and you think, I'm going to sit in that wonderful comfy seat in the back of the dining room. It'll be fantastic. Then you're in it and you think, not as comfy as I was expecting. It isn't the seat of repose and bliss. And then in those moments, as you cross the great chasm between you and the abbot seat, can you experience the experience?

[23:43]

Can you experience the experience that that moment has become emblematic of? Can you experience the life history that gets associated with it? Can that which hasn't been fully heard before be heard now. To get biblical about it, like Moses falling on his knees seeing the burning bush. In another place in the Genja koan, Dogen puts it like this. He says, when you find your place where you are, practice occurs. the fundamental point.

[24:49]

When you find your way at that moment, practice occurs. For the place, the way, is neither large nor small, neither yours nor others. The place, the way, is not simply carried over from the past and is not merely arising now. It has this wordless presence. It has this vital expression that goes beyond any words or ideas you want to wrap it in. And then in another way, it carries the story of your life. rational mind can say, oh, that's not a scary chasm between here and the abbot seat.

[25:55]

It's just a flat wooden floor. And these Zen monks are probably not even paying attention anyway. They're probably just thinking, what's for lunch? I hope it's brine rice, or whatever they're hoping for. So part of the experience can be what arises. And then in this extraordinary way, this gift we're given of ourself. If you have it, I'll give it to you. Awareness gives us ourself. Would you like to receive your great fear about crossing through the unknown in front of the eyes of the whole world?

[27:08]

represents every dream you ever had in which you were naked or crossing dangerous territory without knowing how to get to the goal. Well, here you go. Here it is. It just appeared when the head server said, Abbot Seat. For those of you who don't know, that's what happens when you're serving. You turn up You get your orders, your marching orders, and you march off. So interestingly, we could take this Dharma gate and say, well, all that has to be abandoned, suppressed, pushed away, purified.

[28:16]

If it is, it is. The moment is exactly what it is. It arises as itself. Awareness isn't saying, no, no, that doesn't count. You need more of that and less of that. Awareness just says, what is it? The place, the way, is neither large nor small. Neither yours nor others. The place, the way, has not carried over from the past and is not merely arising now. Even in Zazen, where we think, oh, this is beyond the self.

[29:29]

Hmm. On a good day, on a good period of Zazen, yes, the stories stop, the distractions, the takeaway present diminish or stop. The body, the breath become more vibrant, but still, the subtler workings are there. And this is the dharma of a human life. Both in its adamant fear and in its subtle psychosomatic expression. Can we invite our awareness into this intrigue?

[30:46]

It's not merely carried over from the past and not merely arising now. It's some dance. And it's not a static 50% of each. Sometimes now, seems to disappear in the past, remembrance of the past. Sometimes the past disappears in the experience of now. And the notion of the self shifts and moves around too. Right as we walk in mid-air across that chasm between the door and the abbot seat, in the midst of our fear, we have a moment of joy.

[32:05]

How does that happen? We just feel liberated. Receiving the gift of being what we already had. To study the way is to study the self. in all its forms? Can we become intrigued? Can we forget about gain and loss? Can we forget about what the great goal of practice is? we forget the self.

[33:16]

The urgent things that we need to worry about, yearn for, be hurt by. So as we enter fully into Sashin, it invites us into a different being. And we can watch even our own habit energy. After breakfast, I have to have a cup of whatever, you have to have a cup of. Green tea, black coffee, water, fruit juice.

[34:22]

To watch the mind of, I have to have. And maybe scared a little bit. Maybe you will and maybe you won't. No, I have to have. If I don't have it, I will die. To receive that. To receive these hidden equations of your life. Tenderly. What a tender moment I have to have.

[35:32]

And get it in your hands. precious, precious gift. This lifeline saving you from this world of deprivation. This elixir, this nourishment. It may be all that helps you receive the gift. But the very interesting thing, when we bring attention to it, all that becomes Buddha Dharma. It becomes the experience that illuminates. Even have to have illuminates.

[36:42]

even when we notice judgmental mind they did that wrong even when we feel aversion I can't stand that person whatever it is the whole palette of the human experience that we use to paint reality. Can we give to ourselves what we've already experienced, what we already have? Can we experience the experience? Here is the place. Here the way unfolds. The boundary of realization is not distinct.

[37:51]

For realization comes forth simultaneous with experience of Buddhadharma. Rukhaz uses the word full, simultaneously with full experience of Buddhadharma. Do not suppose that what is experienced, becomes your knowledge, and is grasped by your intellect. Although actualized immediately, what is inconceivable, it goes beyond concepts, might not be apparent. It's arising, it's essence, the essence of the experience is beyond words. So this is a great day, a great opportunity to experience, to have what you already have, however it chooses to manifest itself.

[39:14]

Maybe it will have the flavor of uncharted territory. It will feel like you're being somebody you've never been before. Sometimes the marvel of the Dharma is we find ourselves being a certain way and it feels ancient. How many thousands of times have I done this or thought this? And yet, in that moment, it reveals something you didn't see before. You see something about your own judgmental mind. And a quiet voice inside says, what am I afraid of?

[40:20]

so dangerous about that person being who they are. Here's all of David White's poem. That day I saw beneath the dark clouds the passing light over the water and I heard the voice of the world speak out. I knew then As I had before, life is no passing memory of what has been, nor the remaining pages of a great book waiting to be read. It is the opening of eyes long closed. It is the vision of far-off things seen for the silence they hold. It is the heart after years of secretly conversing, speaking out loud in the clear air.

[41:30]

It's Moses in the desert, fallen on his knees before the lit bush. It's the woman throwing off her shoes as if to enter heaven and finding herself astonished, open at last, falling in love with the earth. Because he just made that up. So please, give yourself your own gift. Make up your own poetic expression. Or in whatever way it appears. Maybe the comfy seat in the back of the dining room will be the repose of bliss.

[42:33]

The average period of zazen, so many thoughts and images. Walking from your room to the bathroom, looking at the food laid out in your areoki before you start to eat. Regret? Oh, I wish I had a hamburger. Deep gratitude? Look at this. I just sit here and the bounty of the world and the beautiful, generous efforts of others brings me food. Either way, the gift is given.

[43:52]

Either way, the answer is yes. This is it. Either way, this generous request, experience what's being experienced. As Shakyamuni said, In the hearing, just hear. In the seeing, just see. Thank you. 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.

[45:02]

For more information, please visit sfzc.org and click Giving. May we fully enjoy the Dharma.

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