This podcast is offered by the San Francisco Zen Center on the web at www.sfzc.org. Our public programs are made possible by donations from people like you. Good morning. I was thinking how fortunate we are to have the rain, to be enclosed in inside the signs of rushing, splashing and dripping water. That kind of enclosure, that kind of containment helping us to be here. something about the character of spring practice period.

[01:04]

If it warms right up into the seventies, then you add that beautiful temperature to the beautiful birds and the budding trees. It's hard not to imagine you're already in summer. But when you get the beautiful rain, And the rushing and splashing and dripping. It's hard not to imagine you're still in the middle of practice period. And we all know how powerful our imaginations are and how persuasive. about discovering the intimacy of being.

[02:09]

The constructs of the Self are the Dharma Gates and the experience of being goes beyond those constructs. to engage that process again and again and again through so many Dharma Gates. And then the inner work as I was saying is this being present and the Dharma Gates of what arises that brings that into a palpable experience. You know, in the early sutras, it talks about moments of presence. Something similar to Proust's remembering.

[03:18]

You know, not just remembering as an idea, but remembering as a felt experience. So, especially in practice period, as we do sashin after sashin, and that we have these Felt experiences of presence. There's a process of remembering. In the sutras it says, these moments connect to each other like pearls on a string. we need to be careful to try to not be in the business of manufacturing a previous experience. Each time we start Sashin, we meet the mind and body that's rising now.

[04:26]

Which brings me to a poem. The world still seems to come one at a time. one day, one year, one season, and here it is spring once more, with its birds nesting in the holes in the trees, its morning, finding the first time its light, pretending not to move, always beginning as it does. Merwin? offer ourselves, we offer our experience to being, to just being.

[05:38]

And as we do that, as it says in Bhandava, as it says in this self-employing and enjoying Samadhi. Through the experience, something is realized. Through the practice, something is actualized. So as we start Sushin, we have the support of the previous machines, we have the support of the practice period, and we have the particularity of now.

[06:40]

So through this practice period, Maybe not so evident to you, but I've been working my way through the four foundations of mindfulness. Emphasizing body, breath, Vedana, and now mind. Mind as in state of mind. Mind as in mental disposition. as in, with what mind do you sit here right now? Is it possible to let something of the request of practice, as it has been explored and actualized in your being, to let it assert an influence

[07:56]

in the midst of whatever is coming up. Is this possible? You know, in both Jiji Yuzamai and in the Satipatthana Sutta, the Sutra on mindfulness, they both or suggesting being and noticing the state of mind. Usually our state of mind is being enacted. It's flavoring, it's influencing, it's coloring how the moment is being engaged. It's stimulating the thought.

[08:57]

It's becoming associated with emotions. So really starting to notice mind as a mental state is very much Dogen's flavor of turn the light inward. Rather than focusing on the content conjured up in the midst of this experience. So on one hand it helps us from being carried away by the states of mind, by the product of the states of mind, from being carried away by the content. And then in another way

[10:01]

starts to help us see what presence is. What is it to abide in being now? And it's from within this kind of connection that we start to make our effort. It's from within this kind of connection this appreciation for the state of mind that we allow presence, that we allow something of the vow of practice to come forth. One of the valuable and often very significant things we can do is to allow this connection to our state of mind to be a way to soften.

[11:25]

If you think about the human condition, in the Satipatthana Sutta it says, In terms of getting in touch with the state of mind, notice desire, the absence of desire, notice aversion, the absence of aversion, notice delusion, the absence of delusion. But then it starts to talk about more subtle qualities. It starts to talk about the way in which mind might be tense or contracted. Not so much because it's exhibiting through holding on to a certain disposition, aversion, attraction, or delusion. Just more like a fundamental uneasiness. Fundamental unsettledness.

[12:30]

And how to connect to this very helpful way to do this is through using the breath to soften, to engage in the breath in a way that brings ease, that brings release, that allows things to flow, that brings a quality of spaciousness. And of course if this is set up in opposition to the contraction or the busyness of mind then you have a struggle. There's another early sutra

[13:47]

and it goes through this beautiful description of being mind and then it says, and then if that doesn't work, beat it and crush it and wrestle it to the ground. often wondered if someone, you know, because these sutras were all kept going by being copied and recopied, if several hundred years later someone thought, oh to hell with that. I'll just add a few more paragraphs. said in a different context, something like this.

[14:52]

If the effort we're making comes from dualistic mind, something that's happening should not happen, something that isn't happening should happen, that kind of effort just perpetuates preference. So the challenge is Quite literally, each and every time you sit down to connect. There's a precision being requested in how we make our effort. There's remembering the deep request of practice. Each and every time we sit down. There's remembering... that it's not what we think it is. It's not what we're striving to do.

[15:59]

It's more about allowing, engaging, realizing. It's more about giving over. And how to attune to that. Sometimes we attune to it by remembering how that is expressed by body. We remember particular details of body presence, the feeling in the chest, the softening of the abdomen or the face. The sensitivity of mudra. An overall sense of physicality as energy.

[17:06]

Or breath. Something about body breathing rather than mind breathing body. something about inhale and exhale as a deep activity in our being beyond our thinking. And similarly with state of mind, to discover, to remember not about to crush this state of mind, bring forth this state of mind. Meet the state of mind that's already present.

[18:19]

This very mind is Buddha. This attunes, this refines, this rediscovers, this actualizes the effort of Zazen. It makes evident the wisdom of great patience. Mind is like the rushing stream in creating its thoughts, its images, its memories. If you sit you can watch, you can let the cacophony of sound of water draw a mind into a more active and distracted state. Our something can settle and let the very same signs be part of the panorama of experience of now.

[19:31]

Even as we start to sit this attunement, this rediscovery, this remembering as a felt experience, as a lived experience. Each moment of attending to body in the service of this realization. and however that expresses itself that our effort comes from inside of that that if our mind is caught in this is what I want to have happen this is what I should have happen that we pause very deliberately and rediscover

[20:46]

the non-dual basis of Zazen. This very mind is Buddha. This very mind is exhibiting the nature of what is. You know, this phrase that I was using in the last machine from the translation we chant of Jiji Yuzamai self-employing and enjoyment samadhi unconstructedness in stillness something other than all the constructs we create and all the ways we respond to them something unconstructed and something not simply in a constant state of reaction.

[22:09]

So we sit with that. And what do we discover? We discover one continuous mistake. It's like we start to get close to by noticing where the mind does contract, react, distract. We discover where there is some residual determined mental state. To turn towards it and experience it. it appears. And what do we discover? We discover things are much worse than we thought.

[23:13]

Because before we thought, well, if I just desire this and I get it, everything's going to be just fine. Or if I just have aversion towards that and that kills it, that'll be just fine. And you discover life is not that simple. You discover that the persistent tendencies of mind don't really resolve anything. They're not really a solution. And this is the arising of the great patience of practice. The willingness to be with what's arising.

[24:18]

Unsettled, missing the mark, however it may be. This is the arising of great compassion for the human condition. or not. As we turn towards it, that's what's revealed. As we fight against it, that stays obscured. So I would say, in contrast to those added paragraphs of the Ithaka Samthana Sutra, crush it and wrestle it to the ground. There is another sutra, I don't think written by the same monk, that simply says, that doesn't work.

[25:25]

In fact, what it says is, supposedly in the words of Shakyamuni, I did that and it didn't work because I couldn't, I wasn't ever finished doing it. There's always more to crush and overcome, but more to discover in the midst a different kind of effort. In some ways you could say the art of zazen is constant refining our effort. Constantly discovering now what? Not so much as a process that happens in the realm of ideas, but as we become closer to experience, we allow the experience to guide our zaza. There's an exact

[26:34]

discovery in giving over to the moment there's an alertness to it there's an energy to it there's a non withholding to it there's a releasing Discovering firsthand, first mind, these qualities. This is the request of Zazen. Discovering what is unconstructedness in stillness.

[27:37]

How do we enter into it? So my suggestion is this quality sometimes called something like effortless effort. That our effort isn't added to with some kind of assertion. Sometimes we discover it sitting with pain, sitting with the discomfort in our knees and we discover you can agitate the discomfort or you can simply be the discomfort.

[28:45]

This is part of the nature of surrender, surrendering to the moment. You can be impatient about the discomfort or not. And you learn that something about letting go of any sense of time any any way in which your mental faculties are holding back saying just 10 more minutes five more minutes no separates just surrendering to the experience and then there's a quality of softening that can be quite physical. As it says in Anapanasati Supta, letting the breath soften the body.

[30:01]

As you start to connect to the physicality of being, letting the body soften, letting that deeper held psychosomatic expression of being start to loosen up. You know, renewing our effort in engagement until the very process of zazen, the very process of mindfulness, the very process of connecting to the moment is literally more passionate than the thoughts and images and memories that constantly occur to mind.

[31:15]

That there's a shift in valence, whereas they're usually dominate as the most important thing that's happening, they now take on a character of being secondary. This is the diligence of Shashin. That we keep returning to now until now is vibrant. Because as we do that, then we can start to experience the state of mind as itself rather than just noticing the consequences of it. As the Satipatthana Sutta says at the end, if you practice this for seven days, the nature of being is illuminated.

[33:03]

So please, as we set sail, remind yourself, remind yourself of those subtle details of practice, of how presence looks in fields in the body in seeing in letting the signs come here then going to the signs in the overall ambience of unconstructedness and stillness when you're walking but your mind hasn't gone ahead to somewhere else But even though you're walking somewhere, you're just now, now, now, step by step.

[34:21]

That the physical space that your body's located in is palpable. that the sense doors are open and the cocoon of me is opened up enough that inside and outside seem to flow back and forth. It tastes that enacting The request of practice is like a relief. Something about not simply settling for the expression, for the preoccupation of discontent and agitation.

[35:40]

already know that it doesn't resolve anything. So we tune in, we attune to the original vow of practice. And even though as we stay close rushing stream of our life force continues with its noisy way still making contact as we can still from within that vibrant energy noticing the state of being

[36:51]

that abides and from within that noticing skillful effort not simply a mechanical half attentive effort but an effort that expresses the precious opportunity of now this precious time that has arisen through our diligent efforts through the whole practice period that now as we reach this time there's some capacity in our body in our breath in our awareness to do this those moments from previous sashims those moments

[37:53]

that arise from our intimacy with this environment, with each other. Just attuning to them, letting them be vibrant. Letting the urgencies and the dramas of individuated consciousness just be held gently. letting them arise and fall away. Till the vow of practice slowly, steadily becomes potent, becomes evident, expresses itself each place we turn. Thank you. For more information, visit SSCC.org and click giving.

[39:13]

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