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. As something in starts to settle, you know, each event... more of a curiosity than some play of success or failure or accomplishment or defeat. What is this shifting of consciousness? This is Joshu's question to nonsense. What is the way?

[01:02]

What is the intimate, subtle workings of awakening? And this is the activity of Sushin. This is the curiosity, the inquiry of Sushin. What the heck is going on? And Mary Oliver says, you just chill there nonsense, I'll take it. Listen to this. What would be better than to sit in silence, think everything, to feel everything, to say nothing? What state is that? to give up commentary, to give up judgment, to give up some emotional enmeshment in what's happening.

[02:15]

To give up surrounding it with some notions of success and failure. And yet, to feel it, to experience it. So as we settle into Shashin, as something in our being starts to connect more to the experience that arises and falls away, and be less engrossed, entranced in the inner workings, the inner intrigues of the fruition of our karmic life. How to sustain this way seeking attention.

[03:25]

What would be better than to sit in silence, to think everything, to feel everything, to say nothing? This is the way of the orange gourd. This is the habit of the rock in the river, over which the water pours all day and all night. The nature of man is not the nature of silence. or the nature of woman. Words are the thunders of the mind. Words are the refinement of the flesh. Words are the responses to the thousand curvaceous moments. We just manage it, sweet and electric. Words flow from the brain and out the gate of the mouth. We make books of them. out of hesitations and grammar.

[04:37]

We're slow and choosy. This is the world. This process of letting each event have its own color, its own hue, its own weight, its own particularity. Hmm. The batteries are not working. Hmm. Do you have some more? Yeah. They're empty too. Hmm. Any more? It's just itself. It has its own particularity. It will have its own consequences. We'll record the talk. We won't record the talk.

[05:46]

Maybe the Eno feels, ah, I failed again. Or maybe he feels, hey, whatever. Nobody's going to die. Can we start to hold what arises for us in that way? Attentive, curious, moving towards it just being itself. And as Mary Oliver says, well, no. Not exactly. silence isn't exactly our nature. I have a lot to say about it. How did this happen? How come the batteries are not charged?

[06:48]

Who is delinquent in the responsibility? Has our machine broken? Can all that be included in a silence? Yeah. Things have a consequence. We relate to the consequence. We're alive. We live in the world. We have set forth for ourselves some purposeful, intentional way of being. quickening and pulsing of our being generates thoughts, images, memories, anticipations. Mary Oliver continues, All day I've been pining for the past.

[07:57]

That's when the big dog Luke breathed by my side. And now She's nothing except for the mornings when I take a handful of words and throw them into the air. Now she's nothing except for the morning when I take a handful of words and throw them into the air. So that she dashes up again out of the darkness. Like this. This is the world. pining for the past. All day I've been pining for the past. So we sit and all sorts of visitors arrive.

[09:03]

Maybe easily identified. Oh, that lovely dog I had. I left out a little bit, just to make a point. And now she's nothing except for mornings when I take a handful of words and throw them into the air so that she dashes up again out of the darkness. Here's what I left out. All day, I've been pining for the past. That's when the big dog, Luke, breathed by my side. Then she dashed away, then returned in and out of the swales, in and out of the creeks, her dark eyes snapping. Then she broke slowly in the rising arc of a fever. The image comes up. The story comes up.

[10:13]

the feeling comes up. Can it be just itself? Can it be the momentary play, the arising that's splashed across the canvas of now? whatever color it is. Indigo, yellow, green. This is about renunciation. I remember years back when I was doing reconciliation in Northern Ireland, someone told me this statement.

[11:32]

They said, forgiveness is to stop wishing for a better past. Something is renounced. Something is let go. Is it the product of discipline? Is it the product of internal coercion? Suppression? Transcendence? These are the questions of wayseeking mind. To take them although they're just stark statements, and explore within the intimate workings of your being.

[12:40]

As you see, will you grasp? Will you cling for dear life? But how can I live now if I can't make a better past? How can I live now if I can't be assured of a brighter future? How can I live now if in the psychodrama of the moment I can't assert the abiding impulses in my being? So I hope you can see, as we continue on our path, things get much worse.

[13:53]

You thought you had problems, and then you start to look closely, and you think, whoa, I really have problems. You thought zazen. isn't getting through 30 or 40 minutes without too much discomfort or without too much wriggling around. And then you discover it's asking everything you've got. And it's asking that it be let go. not as an act of criticism, not as an act of cleansing and impurity, not as an act of transcendence, but simply as an act of embracing now.

[15:05]

memory of Luke running through the swales, succumbing to a fever. Now just a handful of words evoked for whatever reason in the morning. whose life is not just this, a collection of memories and anticipations, a curious interplay with what's experienced in the moment. This is the territory we start to enter as we move into Sashim, as we engage the way.

[16:29]

The way, both the process of awakening and the journey, the path. And of course, as each moment is allowed to be itself, it's the destination, it's the realization. So something about renunciation in all of this. And we start to explore, we start to attend to the particular of grasping. What is it when the emotions surge with an urgency?

[17:33]

What is it when the mind grasps with an insistence to repeat The question is not, how do I fix it? The question is, what is it? And this is an important distinction. When our effort goes follows the thought how do I fix it some way some curious ambition for our life is being engaged and enacted I will tell the moment what to be I will make the moment what it should be

[18:49]

will make the world what it should be well good luck with that what is this renunciation just this is enough. Just this is just this. How does it give permission for the body to allow the breath to enter deeply and fully? How does it give permission for the ears to hear and the eyes to see and the body to be felt.

[20:01]

So simple, tantalizingly so. But once we bring in the intrigues of human consciousness, of our conditioned existence. All sorts of challenges. All sorts of ways our own individual consciousness will be prompted to come forth according to its conditioning. next moment of awareness, my conditioned response to that. Do I grasp it eagerly, anxiously, filled with desire or poignant sadness?

[21:21]

I stiffen at my own sinfulness, determined to return to the righteous path. The path of awakening, the path of liberation, it just is what it is. the batteries are flat, the batteries are flat. If some agitated state arises, some agitated state arises. But for almost all of us,

[22:31]

We need to involve a deliberate process to help initiate, enable, return to this simplicity. Just this is this. We need to create allies We need to explore the body and discover, realize something about settledness. We need to explore the breath and discover, realize something about letting the inhale enter. Letting the moment enter.

[23:33]

letting the whole world into we need to discover realize something about let it go let it pass and the transition between the two neither coming nor going residing in flux we need to attend to the states of mind we need to learn from those moments when it just is what it is to let something register to let something be soaked in, to let something be savored.

[24:40]

Sometimes its color is indigo. It has a quiet discipline. Sometimes its color is red. It has an aliveness, a vibrancy. Sometimes it's yellow. It has a spiritual hue. Either way, any way, just is what it is. And in that moment, Consciousness holds it gently and attentively. To let it register and to let it teach. As Dogen Zenji says, when the world comes forth, this is awakening.

[25:58]

Maybe it doesn't completely crack open the world of all your constructs. Maybe it makes a little crack. Or a momentary crack. Maybe momentarily it cracks it all open. You just eagerly rush back in there and seal it back up. those moments. And don't be waiting for them to be earth shattering. The moment when you feel the sun's warmth and something in you softens. the moment you notice an arising emotional disposition conjured up from the past in some extraordinary mysterious way.

[27:24]

And this is about renunciation. This is about letting that unrelenting drive to make the world. Letting that unrelenting drive to shape it, to repair the past and the future. letting some fearful hesitancy start to soften so our diligent determined effort is carried along by an extraordinary benevolence towards our own being

[28:39]

We enact in an intimate way the noble truths. Suffering is caused by this struggling workings of our human life. What would it be like to let it loosen up, soften up? As we engage like this, the proposition of practice becomes inviting. We are renouncing suffering. This is such good news, we can't bear to let it in. Surely there must be some punishment in there for all my evil doings.

[29:55]

You just didn't know any better. Weren't quite paying attention. Thought it was a good idea at the time. we start to attend we start to notice the particulars you start to notice maybe you can even notice that it's almost like the moment has a shape has some characteristics to it is there a moment that arises for you when you hear the wake-up Is it a quiet scream of no?

[31:12]

Or a fervent vow? Can you feel its weight? See its size? Its electrical charge? and our life start to happen at this pace. When you find yourself where you are, practice occurs, actualizing the fundamental point. Such a simple notion. hard to argue against cannot become so close that it informs how each arising is related to

[32:47]

Can it be closer than the habit energies? Now we're asking for what? That's why we need the allies. That's why we need the diligent exploration, engagement, and discovery of body and breath. of attending to the states of mind, of noting the mental tendencies of your mind. No one can do it for you. You can come to practice discussion or dokusan, and please do. What's happening? How are you practicing with it? practice leaders or myself may have some startling wisdom for you.

[34:00]

Still entering the intimate alchemy of your own being and bringing forth this awareness. Entering the inter-indicate intimate alchemy of your own being and discovering that renunciation is not a punishment. It's not a brutal assault on your wish to be alive. It's the gift of letting go of suffering. I would say in some ways we simply will not believe that statement until we've tasted it directly. Many times.

[35:08]

And maybe it's okay in the meantime. to work with your breath and your body in the process of becoming a more wonderful person, more spiritual, more adept in the ways of awakening. But this subtle work, what is the way? This stimulating of a curious engagement. How can that question possibly be answered from anywhere other than what's discovered in our own practice?

[36:23]

And it's not to deny that there may be moments in your sitting where there's murky consciousness, where everything is swimming in the dark sea, or there's billowing soft clouds of drysiness. stay with the fundamentals, uprightness, awakeness. The yogic alchemy of practice will start to reveal itself. And it's not 10,000 miles away in a cave of the Himalayas.

[37:39]

It's as close as letting the body release and receive the inhale. It's as close as just seeing that arising state of mind. whether it's one of gratitude or resentment. They're both wonderful teachers. One is sweet and one is sour, but takes all flavors for a good meal. And as we move back and forth, cloudy, clear, sweet, sour, concentrated, distracted. Returning, returning, just this.

[38:53]

When you float off in some embellishment, just this. when you burden yourself with some well-exercised pain returning just this. And nonsense is ordinary mind. tricky answer. Ordinary. When we scratch the surface, when we look a little bit closely, nothing is ordinary.

[40:01]

Even the memory of a dog that arises like a handful of words in the morning and you touch something of your own loneliness gift to see and feel and experience the attributes of self to become yourself to know yourself to discover how to make sense have an appreciation for the territory of your conditioned existence

[41:12]

Ji Jiu Yu Zamai. Seeing the Self, learning from the arisings. So this time in Shishin is a precious moment. We're setting a process. We're enabling a process. We're not waiting till we've worn ourselves down. We're looking at it now. We're not waiting and hoping for a better concentration.

[42:26]

more serenity maybe that'll happen maybe it won't at this time we can taste and touch the request of renunciation whatever state of mind however whenever can start to touch some visceral urgency that drives our life according to its scheme of what it wants and what it doesn't want. Shakyamuni said, when you start to see this,

[43:38]

of self starts to come apart maybe when your minds more settled and more to your pleasing this attribute of renunciation won't be so evident I always feel it, often feel it as a poignant moment when the kitchen crew leaves.

[45:05]

The price we pay for lunch. This willingness to be the mind you are, Now, the second day of Sashin, whatever the heck that is, not because it meets your hopes or your standards, because it is what it is. What can be more simple, more profound? than such a practice. Would it be better to sit in silence, to think everything, feel everything, to say nothing?

[46:14]

This is the way of the orange gourd. This is the habit of the rock in the river over which the water pours day and night. The nature of man is not the nature of silence. Words are the thunders of the mind. Words are the refinement of the flesh. Words are the responses to the thousand curvaceous moments. We just manage it, sweet and electric. Words flow from the brain and out the gate of the mouth. We make books of them, out of hesitations grammar we're slow and choosy this is the world all day I've been pining for the past that's when the big dog look breathed at my side then she dashed away then returned in and out of the swales in and out of the creeks her dark eyes snapping then she broke slowly

[47:29]

in the rising arc of a fever. And now she's nothing except for mornings when I take a handful of words and throw them into the air so that she dashes up again out of the darkness. Like this. This is the world. 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. For more information, visit SSCC.org and click Giving.

[48:14]

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