This podcast is offered by San Francisco Zen Center on the web at sfcc.org. Our public programs are made possible by donations from people like you. Good morning. You know, for those of us who've sat many machines and... foolishly think we know something about sitting Sashin, we often think that the fourth day is the golden age of Sashin. This is it. This is the golden age. This state of mind and body that you're experiencing now, it's terrific, in case you didn't notice. you've reached the pinnacle of your Zen accomplishment.

[01:05]

That human impulse to contextualize, to give meaning and conclusion. This is the golden age. And when we're in the throes of what we are and how we are and what we're doing, we forget it. What's in the moment is more vibrantly assertive of existence. you may or may not have noticed, we're having a big drama in Sushin. The breakfast meal is taking longer than it's scheduled for. And in the Zen world, that's a big drama. Everything should follow the schedule, even the breakfast.

[02:25]

So the kanto has talked to the soku. The soku has talked to the head server. The head server has talked to the servers. The servers have talked to the serving utensils. The serving utensils have talked to the pots. And the pots have talked to the hot cereal. But upon hearing all this, the serial said, but time is just a concept. It's just a construct. Too long and too short are just notions, some way of measuring that's just arbitrary. However, I will do my best to pour more quickly into the bowl. this is the Zen way you know of course we made up the schedule and was actually it was our best guess as to what would work with something in relating to the request of the situation it asks

[04:00]

something of us, that kind of engagement, that kind of commitment, that kind of responsiveness. I mean, Dogenzenji comments on the interaction between Basso and his teacher, Nangaku, and he comments on sitting to be Buddha and polishing a tile. And he says, sitting to be Buddha, that's pretty good. Polishing a tile, that's pretty good too. Okay, it's an arbitrary notion as to how long the meal should take. But attending to the details. In serving the meals, there's little details, little nuances.

[05:09]

Have the servers lined up by the door so when the soku says, go, they go. All these, attending to all these little details asks something of us. And in being asked and responding and giving, in response, something's drawn out of us. And that whole process of being asked and giving, it illuminates what we're doing. This is the spirit of our practice. As we're settling into Shishin, the intrigues, the demands of our inner world, all the things we yearn for and all the things we want to complain about to ourselves or anybody else who'll listen, and how they're reverberating through our body and our mind,

[06:31]

It's formidable. It's an extraordinary challenge. It's an extraordinary act of courage and discipline to sit upright in the middle of it. There's a process of deconstruction. When we cling to nothing, the something that holds the world together in the form we've come to relate to it, starts to come apart. But Zen practice is both deconstruction and reconstruction. And then we reconstruct another reality. The most important thing is that first finish on schedule.

[07:40]

Even the cereal, the pots and the serving utensils need to know that. And attending in that way This is the most important thing. But if we get too caught up in it, we lose something. We miss that it's also play. What we've constructed is a wonderful piece of theater. when it's clicking along, it has its own beauty. And even when it's not clicking along, it still has its own beauty.

[08:46]

And so do we, as we click along and as we don't click along so well, maybe clatter along. We can watch the urgencies and the constructs of our own mind. We can watch how we've internalized something. Our own way of polishing the tile, our own way of becoming Buddha, our own way of sitting that lets go of the constructed version of existence, and our own way of entering into the activity and doing it thoroughly. And each of them asks for full commitment. And each of them has its wisdom and its foolishness.

[09:59]

whole human existence is a construct. That's the very nature of each moment of consciousness. It's the construct of the five skandhas. The notion that breakfast should take a certain length of time. If we'd have said it takes 15 minutes later, then every morning we could have said, success. We're ahead of schedule. How wonderful. But we didn't. With the two together, they help us create a balance. Life in every detail, every context is inevitably a construct.

[11:16]

But if that thwarts our commitment to being alive, if that dissipates our involvement and our energy, the very life force within us is dissipated. is thwarted. If we turn it into some kind of absolute, some kind of demand that has to be perfected, then it's too tight. There's too much focus on the goal. So Dogen Zenji is saying, yes, polish the tile, yes, sit to be Buddha, but don't get caught up.

[12:17]

It's only a wonderful excuse to make your best effort. And that's what draws Virya, the energy. or in Japanese terms, the jyoriki, the energy that comes from dedicated engagement. One of the great gifts of serving is it demands something. You give what's being demanded and you feel the lightness, you feel the energy, you feel the involvement of it. And then one of the other great gifts is that when you make a mistake, you go to the wrong person, not the one that Suku told you to, everything doesn't stop.

[13:35]

The whole Assembly doesn't gasp with horror. We don't say, that's it, we're canceling the Shishin. No breakfast today. I remember once I sat Shishin with Harada Shodo Roshi. And afterwards he said to me, um, I really liked it this morning when you made a mistake chanting the maka shingyo and you didn't pause for a second, you just went straight ahead. In one of the comments on one of the coin cases, In one of the Cohen cases in the book of the Serenity, the verse says, dropping the water pitcher, not even looking back.

[14:50]

Of course you're going to make mistakes. Of course your mind is going to wander. Of course you're going to turn this way instead of that way. maybe if you don't give it your best effort, you'll be saved from that poignant, ugh, when you notice what you just did. But then something in your life is being held back. that Zen practice, Shishin, our life, everything we do, every relationship we have, putting on our clothes in the morning, taking them off at night.

[16:00]

Can we do what we're doing? In the doing what we're doing, the way we've constructed it, the way we've marked it in terms of success and failure, or getting what we want or feeling to get what we want, however we've constructed it, is revealed in the doing, in the energetic commitment. And maybe you noticed, or maybe you didn't notice, but breakfast was a little bit shorter today. Almost right back on schedule, so you can relax.

[17:09]

I know that was worrying you. But we'll find other things, don't worry. We'll keep polishing the tile. And this interplay, the interplay between the sitting still and holding on to nothing and getting up and entering completely into activity. They bring a balance, they bring an integration. They both teach us something vital about liberation. They both teach us about non-attachment.

[18:13]

Maybe we could even say renunciation. Some cherished topic comes to mind. You can feel the allure of it. You just want to get into it. Whether it's something you've yearn for or something you dread, they both have allure. They're both juicy. Open the hand of thought and let it go. And how in attending to the breath and letting the breath breathe, Letting the sign to the motorbike be the sign to the motorbike. Letting the sensation in the body be the sensation in the body.

[19:18]

And then even the cherished thought or feeling is just itself. And its subjectivity becomes more apparent. And this asks something of us as a human being. It makes a request of us. It points to the uprightness of this very mind is Buddha. And as we engage in that way, there's also illumination. There's both the illumination of seeing, grasping. And as we continue to sit, you know, rather than find ourselves after several minutes

[20:35]

of being enthralled by something, we can start to see the emerging. In the Satipatthana Sutta, the four foundations of mindfulness, the fourth foundation is the Dharma, the workings of mind, or the Dharma. When we're caught up in them, they're mysterious and opaque. As we start to settle, as we start to connect, as what's happening now becomes not so far apart from the last what's happening now. As we continually punctuate the narrative of me with these moments of awareness.

[21:39]

Something starts to be more fully eliminated. We start to see the particularity of our own unique subjective way of being. Can we commit to this engagement without imposing some drama on its unfolding? This odd combination, commit completely without the expectation of a particular result. as the exchange between Vaso and Nangaku, his teacher goes on, Nangaku's, then Vaso says, well, could you say more about that?

[23:04]

Could you kind of like unpack that a little bit? And he says, this giving it everything you've got, this making best effort moment after moment, being driven by the goal, the desired outcome, or what should happen. This kind of engagement, it has an influence on the state of mind, on the state of consciousness. It's like the rain falling onto seeds. something is activated. And as we sit and sit and sit, what's happening now, what's happening now, experience the experience that's being experienced, and all the other crazy things we hear about practice,

[24:24]

I asked my four-year-old grandson, he's five now, but I asked him when he was four, I said, are you gonna practice Zen? And he said, no. And I thought, that's a great Zen answer. As we continue, something's ripening. But as it illuminates, it's illuminating the constructs that have come into being to support our existence. And can we relate to them with this mind that sees

[25:34]

of wholehearted effort and how in our human condition, of course we construct. Don't construct a goal. Okay, I'll get to that as soon as I accomplish this goal. As soon as my mind is as calm as I would like it to be. As soon as the way these issues agitate me has eased off enough for me to feel a certain modicum of serenity, then I'll get to non-attachment, or effortless, effortless, or practicing without a goal. But that mind, When it arises, literally, can it teach us the Dharma?

[26:40]

Can it teach us how to practice? So the fourth foundation of mindfulness in the Satiputthana essentially lists a condensed version of the basic teachings of practice. And each of us as we attend to our own workings will see that. And there's no greater teacher than seeing it displayed in the activity of your own being. We see how We have a goal, becoming Buddha, polishing a tile, and we commit to it.

[27:41]

There's a virtue in that. There's a virtue in saying, breakfast is going too long, let's work on the details. And then each person Okay, so the request is that I shift like this. We attend to the detail, even in the detail of our own sitting, and we see what's illuminated. And the great gift of just sitting without involving ourselves in activity is that there is the space for that kind of attention.

[28:50]

Then we can start to see where the mind moves. We can start to see what's rippling through the body. as we become more, as our awareness is more attuned to what's going on, we can discover in more detail, in more particularity, the Dharma of being upright. We can discover in more particularity what it is to let the breath breathe the body. or whatever technique we're involved in. I suggest that one because it doesn't require a high degree of concentration. And like many breathing techniques, as it's continued, it will foster concentration.

[30:02]

be a little bit technical about it, it will foster a more open concentration. And then the nature of our Zen practices, we take that open concentration into activity. And there we discover how to take the activity of the formless, of just sitting without an agenda, and turn it into the form. This form is called serving breakfast. This form is called attending to these details. And in that attention, we see all the little ways something goes wrong. But can we also see the way it's perfect?

[31:13]

It's completely itself. It's like listening to someone play a certain piece of music. They play it exactly the way they play it. They're influenced the way they're influenced. And that's it. So the image that Nangaku uses is that the rain falls and germinates the seeds. Awareness permeates consciousness.

[32:17]

And as it permeates consciousness, something is brought to life. to be aware is enlivened. And as we enter this golden age of Zen, we can start to see that it's possible to walk somewhere and just be walking. And in some very interesting, mysterious way, it's like letting the breath breathe the body. It's like letting the body walk. We can engage the activity.

[33:32]

And in doing what we're doing, something's illuminated. both itself but it's and it exemplifies what is and it's also awareness. The usual construct or context of the self is not so incessantly or insistently put forward. This activity is just itself. And right now, I'm relating to it like this.

[34:37]

I can see that too. And as I relate to it like this, what does that stir up? Do I become a little agitated with the urgency? Can I finish this before the gong for the end of Soji? And what a beautiful gift. finish it before the end of Sochi. That's what the system says. But what do you say? What does your emotional involvement in the moment say? Are you only half-heartedly doing it? Because, hey, what the heck, I'm cleaning something that's already clean. Or has your mind set a goal.

[35:48]

You know, if I just go at this extra fast, I'm sure I can sweep this whole thing before the gong goes. And when the gong goes, can you stop immediately? Even though just a little bit more and you'd have the whole thing done. These little details, you know, and how they dance between being important and not. In how they underlie, how they illustrate what underlies them, this nature of existence. These are just constructs of the moment. They're the expressions of our life.

[36:49]

We live in a context. When the grandfather clock starts to chime, we think, that's 11 o'clock. Thank God this will be over soon. Hiroshi, who I mentioned a few days ago, he would give long talks. And every now and then, for about the first 45 minutes, maybe even an hour, it was enthralling. And then after that, there'd be this sneaky little thought, surely he's close to done by now. And then that thought would grow lighter. And at a certain point you think, okay, he's just about made his point and he's going to say thank you very much.

[37:59]

And then he'd launch into something else. And then he was holding a special teaching in, and so we talk about an hour and a half. He was holding a special teaching in Minnesota where his center was. And he brought Narazaki Roshi. Narazaki would talk for between two and a half and three hours. And I remember thinking, it's all relative, isn't it? 45 minutes is a long time. An hour and a half is a long time. Two and a half, three hours is a long time. How funny this world we live in. So many things are constructed, we live within them. We look back and we say, ah, how amazing.

[39:10]

They carry something of the story of our life. What is it to delve down and be now, beyond time? What is it to delve down and be so in this activity that self is forgotten? And then what is it to see as me asserts itself? What is it to get in touch with, as that little poem I like to read, not only what you say, but what makes you say it. Something to do with the feeling, the emotion, something to do with the Vedana, the deeper feeling, and just something to do with being alive.

[40:23]

can that be held with its own kind of appreciation? You know, whether it's a charming occurrence or a poignant occurrence, And in this, the golden age of Sashin, we can start to notice these little details that put together our life. We can start to see some of the patterns. This emotion you're having, this is not the first time you've had it. It has a trail through a thread through your life. And those threads, emotional threads, threads of behavior, threads of thought and opinion, they are the fabric of our life.

[41:45]

And what a heartbreak it would be to just dismiss it as something trivial, just confusion or delusion. something in holding that with appreciation that supports our life. There's some way we create within ourselves an enthusiasm, a hopefulness, a willingness to live this life. And Nankaku says to Basho, he says, just this awareness, it fosters that growth. It's beyond what you think and what you figure out.

[42:59]

That vitality for your life grows as you engage the practice. And in your foolishness, do it as diligently as you can. Serve lunch as if the whole world depended on it. Because for us who are eating it, it does. We're depending on you. curious way, this curious integration that the little detail illustrates the universal. And as the awareness grows and it illuminates, you might not like some of what's illuminated.

[44:14]

Actually, most likely you will not like some of what's illuminated. because in the past you've skillfully distracted yourself, suppressed it, dissociated from it, all those wonderful mechanisms of our human psyche. But that's not the whole story. The other part of the story is this very mind is Buddha. There's something there that when it's seen, There's something in that human capacity to hold it and see it and to deeply understand it and to have a tender heart in relationship to it. And that's like the rain nourishes the seeds.

[45:15]

That's what nourishes our human life. Thank you. For more information, please visit sfcc.org and click Giving. May we all fully enjoy the Dharma.

[45:46]

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