This podcast is offered by the San Francisco Zen Center on the web at sfzc.org. Our public programs are made possible by donations from people like you. Hi, kids. Nice to see you. Are we ready? Yeah. So suppose we practice meditation just for a few minutes. Okay? Kids meditation. Kids ready for this? Are you meditators? Do you know how to breathe? Anybody here doesn't know how to breathe?

[01:00]

Raise your hand if you don't know how to breathe. A few, a few. Well, good. Well, you're in the right place. We're going to practice breathing. Okay, so close your eyes. Close your eyes. If you're willing to close your eyes, please close them. And breathe in. And now breathe out. And just keep doing that for a minute. Just breathe in and breathe out, just normally and naturally, and enjoy the breathing. In and out. Very, very nice, really. Okay, now when you breathe in, imagine in your mind a big ocean wave is coming in, and it comes in as you breathe in.

[02:18]

See that big ocean wave just gently coming in, breathing in. And when you breathe out, see how coming out of your nostrils is a cloud. You're breathing out a cloud, and you can see in your mind's eye the white fluffy cloud in front of you. And every time you breathe in a big ocean wave, and every time you breathe out, that cloud gets a little bit bigger and brighter. So just see it in your mind. Breathing in. Ocean wave is coming and you can hear the sound almost. And then when you breathe out, a cloud is coming bigger and brighter, a white fluffy cloud, bigger and brighter.

[03:24]

So practice like that for a few minutes and I'll stop talking. And now let's have all the kids stand up. Stand up.

[04:25]

And close your eyes and stand up tall with your arms straight down at your sides. Stand up tall. Make yourself as tall as you can possibly make yourself. As tall as you can be. And close your eyes and stand up and feel your whole body and imagine... Imagine that your body is a big mountain. You're not you anymore. You're a mountain. Okay? Be a mountain. Can you be a mountain? I think so. If you want to, I think you can be a mountain. Feel your mountain body. The mountain is very tall and very strong, and nothing in the whole wide world can move that mountain.

[05:30]

Nothing. That's you. Okay, then sit back down. So what do you think? What do you think? So you thought you were just you, but it turned out you could be an ocean wave, you could be a cloud, you could be a mountain. Do you think so? What do you think? What does she think? What do you think? She doesn't like it. She doesn't like this. Well, I don't blame you. You have to sit there. You probably feel like doing something else, right?

[06:32]

What do you feel like doing? Anything but this. Well, yeah, that's how it goes sometimes, doesn't it? Yeah. Would you be happy if I said all the kids can go out and play now? Would that make you happier? All the kids can go out and play now. Go ahead. Go ahead. No, really, go. That's it. That's all. Go, go. Thank you. Thank you. You look great. You want to take it? It's good. I like pomegranate. Pomegranate, yeah. That's the only kind you like? This is not pomegranate, I don't think, yeah. Thank you.

[07:35]

Thanks. You're very patient to sit here all that long, yeah. Thank you. Take it easy. You look like you're one of the oldest ones among the kids, huh? Lots of little kids. Yeah. I guess there's room in the front if anybody wants to take these seats. So let's continue the meditation practice.

[08:44]

Just breathing in and breathing out. Feeling your body sitting on the chair or on the cushion. and yeah, opening up your body lifting and opening so your body really is just like a mountain solid and upright and absolutely patient no matter what comes sun, wind, storm the mountain receives it patiently. Feel your body like that.

[09:55]

And feel your breathing in your belly, breathing in and breathing out, every breath in, vitalizing your life every breath out, bringing peace and calm and letting go And feel the breath in the whole body when you breathe in, feeling how your whole body becomes more alive with every inhale. And feel how, when you breathe out, every part of your body becomes calmer.

[11:05]

And if you feel some place of tension or discomfort in your body, just feel how the exhale can bring peace to that place, to the shoulder or the belly, wherever. There needs to be more well-being. The exhale can bring rest and well-being to that part of the body. What a beautiful thing to breathe mindfully. Just noticing the healing effect of every breath. Thank you very much.

[12:45]

That's nice, huh? Actually, it's kind of too bad that I have to go on and talk now. You could just sit here the whole time and it would actually be better. Now lately I've been studying the Mindfulness Sutra and here's how it begins. I heard these words of the Buddha one time when I was living at Kamasadharma, a market town of the Kuru people. The Buddha addressed the monastics and he said, Oh monastics! And they replied, Venerable Lord. Then the Buddha said, Monastics, there is a most wonderful way to help living beings realize purification, overcome directly grief and sorrow, end pain and anxiety, travel the right path, and realize nirvana.

[13:55]

This way is the four establishments of mindfulness. That's how the sutra opens. Then, of course, the Buddha goes on to explain and speak about the four establishments of mindfulness. Mindfulness of the body, kaya sati, mindfulness of feelings, sensations, vedana sati, mindfulness of mental and emotional states, citta sati, and mindfulness of patterns of mind and heart, dhamma sati. and this word sati is the word that is usually translated as mindfulness but I don't like that word so much because in our language it seems like it's a little misleading it makes mindfulness seem like a chore a task as if being mindful is to track yourself which makes mindfulness seem like a kind of

[15:13]

self-consciousness. But actually, if you study the sutras, sati is meant to be the opposite of self-consciousness. Sati means more like presence of mind or simply being fully present. Collecting yourself or recollecting yourself and simply being present with whatever is in this moment of presence. Anyway, that's probably more like how Zen guys would see mindfulness. Just being where you are as simply as you could possibly be. And according to the sutra, the practice starts with mindfulness of the body. First you pay attention literally to your body, like you can amazingly... You can even listen to me while I'm saying words. And at the same time, you could be aware of your body. You could be aware of the pressure of the chair or cushion on your butt.

[16:14]

You could be aware of your back. You could be aware of your arms, your head, your feet, your legs. And that's the first thing in the sutra, is to be aware of your body. And then right away, after that, to be aware of your breathing. Just like we were doing a minute ago, right? We were practicing mindfulness of breathing and mindfulness of the body. And that's the first thing that the sutra says, practice mindfulness of the breathing, practice mindfulness of the body. And then it extends that. It says, and do that not only when you're just simply sitting, but do it all the time during the actions of the body in movement ordinarily during the day. When you're walking, when you're standing, when you're moving forward and backward, when you're lifting something, when you're putting something down, when you're eating, when you're resting. When you're going to the toilet, it even says, you know, be aware. When you're urinating and defecating, it even says. I think it's the only sacred scripture I'm aware of that mentions pooping and peeing.

[17:19]

You could read the entire Bible, the Old Testament, New Testament, and you'd never get the idea that human beings went to the toilet, because as far as I know, there's no mention of this whatsoever in the entire holy scripture. But the mindfulness sutra does say, pay attention on the toilet or squatting down over a hole, if that's how you go to the toilet. Being present all day long and noticing, no matter what is happening, there is always a body here. And this is what it feels like. This is what it's like, this body. So it says all this in the sutra, pay attention. Be present all the time to the body, with the body. And then there are other practices of mindfulness of the body that are listed in the sutra that seem to be more analytical and that have to do with being present with the body in a way that promotes understanding through just being present with the body.

[18:35]

Understanding what the body actually is what we call our body is not actually what the body is if you were really really present and look very closely you'll see that the body is not what you think it is actually the body is a shared process of life that literally comes from the earth and returns to the earth. The body is not a thing, an object. It's a flow of experience in time. And you notice that each moment the body passes away and each moment a new body returns. So you kind of experientially realize that the body is not a thing and it's not yours.

[19:35]

It's not you. It's just an instance of human life appearing right here and now in this place as the body temporarily. That's actually what you experience when you practice very closely awareness of the body. long section of the sutra is about, maybe the longest part of the sutra is about awareness of the body in all its detail. And of course I'm not going into the many interesting challenging practices that are mentioned in the sutra. But the idea is that if you practice awareness of the body at this level, the other foundations of mindfulness are going to eventually come into view. through strong awareness of the body. You're going to begin to notice Vedana, feelings, sensations, which according to the sutra are of three types, pleasant, unpleasant, and neutral.

[20:54]

These are deep, visceral, almost beyond the personal gut reactions. that the body has and the heart has to almost everything that comes into view in perception. You begin to notice those reactivities in the body and in the heart. And then you begin to notice how citta arises. The whole complex of thoughts and feelings and wounds and emotions and stories and identities and massive complications and confusions that become activated whenever Vedana is activated. It doesn't just lay there all by itself. It all of a sudden creates a whole storm cloud of stuff that is our inner life and all the suffering that this brings so often.

[21:59]

all the upset and all the controversy and all the pain, and you begin to see how that whole thing comes to be. And if you can remain mindful of this, which you, little by little, are able to do the more you practice mindfulness of the body, remain present with it and not become just wrapped up in it and entangled in it, as we usually do, and not run away from it with distractions or with blame and recrimination and trying to fix everything which is another form of distraction. Eventually, you'll be able to see the fourth foundation of mindfulness, Dhamma. Dhamma here means patterns of mind. You'll begin to see how the whole thing unfolds, how the suffering takes place. And when you see how the suffering takes place, you will be not at all motivated to keep on making more suffering.

[23:14]

Why would you want to make more suffering when you realize that it's not really necessary to do this? Why would you want to do it? And you really don't want to do it anymore. So I want to say a little bit more about this fourth foundation of mindfulness, Dhamma Sati. The longest section in the sutra is the first, Kaya Sati. The second longest is this fourth one, Dhamma Sati. And it includes many lists of Buddhist qualities. The basic qualities that produce suffering and also the basic qualities that will produce peace and awakening. The Buddha was I think a pretty intelligent person, it would seem. And he spent his entire life, think about it, he spent 45 years of this big focus when we think about the Buddha on the Buddha's enlightenment. But the Buddha's enlightenment was a very brief interlude in his life.

[24:19]

Most of his life, 45 years, he was wandering around talking to people and interacting with people about their lives. and listening to people's stories. And paying attention to his own heart and mind for 45 years. Without any breaks, they didn't have weekends in those days. Weekend is a recent invention of the labor movement, you know. So, Buddha didn't take a day off. 45 years until Death, paying attention. So he had a pretty fair understanding of the human heart and how it works. How we get mixed up in suffering and how the suffering could be overcome with wisdom and correct action of body, speech, and mind.

[25:28]

And he was all over the place in India, and he talked to a lot of different kinds of people in all social classes. And this helped him to devise various teachings that could be helpful to address common human habits. And it isn't as if the teachings of the Buddha are true, that we can determine that they're true. Maybe they are. But that wasn't... the Buddha's interest, whether they were true or not. The Buddha was interested in what would help people to reduce their suffering. So, if it would be helpful to say it this way, in this particular situation, the Buddha would say it that way. Because he saw that it would help. So, in this fourth foundation of mindfulness, Dhammasati, The Buddha discusses some of the various formulations and lists of qualities that he had worked on all these years to help reduce suffering.

[26:43]

So he outlines in this part of the sutra the five hindrances, which are the qualities, things like laziness, anxiety, anger, clinging. things like that, that prevent us from seeing and acting with clarity. He talks about how to be aware of these things, how to notice them in the body and in the feelings and how to let go. He talks about the five aggregates of clinging, which is basically the way in which we misidentify ourselves with our experience. And how to be aware of what happens when we do that, and how we do that, and how to let go.

[27:44]

And then he talks about the act of perception. Who notices the act of perception? We totally take it for granted, right? But the Buddha didn't take it for granted. He said, how is it that we perceive things? How is it that we think about things? How is it that we get fooled all the time on a basic visceral level by our perceptions and our thinking? How to be aware of this in the body and how to let go And he intended that people would practice these things over many, many years and see through it all, more or less. And then eventually other things that were already there but were not noticed would arise.

[28:49]

The factors of enlightenment which are already there but we're too busy screwing ourselves up to even notice that we have these things in us. Now once we clarify a little bit, we can notice the factors of enlightenment arising. Qualities like curiosity. Imagine what it would be like if something terrible happened. Instead of complaining and trying to get rid of it and get out of it and blame somebody for it, you were curious about it. Gee, look at that. I wonder what that's about. So those kind of factors. energy commitment joy ease diligence how we could be aware of these qualities how we could see how important they are how we could strengthen them and then yes let go so that we don't cling to those qualities and make them into a problem and finally

[29:59]

At the end of this section of the Sutra, he talks about the Four Noble Truths, his most basic teaching. And his first teaching that he repeated over and over for 45 years. And I think during the 45 years, I'm sure he was more and more impressed with how true these things are, how pervasive and subtle suffering is. All conditioned things, he said, have the nature of suffering. Not just the things we don't like, the things that we find problematic, but everything that's conditioned, by virtue of its being conditioned, has the nature of suffering. And that first thing we need to know is how true that is, and not fool ourselves about it. Imagine that somehow there's an escape route. There's no escape. All conditioned existence has the nature of suffering, but suffering has a cause. Basically, the cause of suffering he taught is our misunderstanding of our lives.

[31:11]

A misunderstanding that leads to clinging and grasping. That's the cause of suffering. And third, that, like everything that has a cause, that cause can be undone and clarified. So suffering, because it's caused, can come to an end and there can be real peace. Wonderful news. And the fourth truth, there's a way, there's a path that we can bring about the undoing of the cause of suffering and peace. And in that path, mindfulness, awareness, simple presence, is the key element. This is so amazing. Just by being present, just by breathing and paying attention to our own experience with energy and commitment over time, that we could completely heal our lives just by being present.

[32:30]

This is hard to believe, isn't it? We do not believe this. But this is what the Buddha is claiming in the Mindfulness Sutra. So the Buddha was a great psychologist. Maybe he was the first and possibly the best of all psychologists. But the difference between the Buddha and all other psychologists is that the Buddha did not see that there was any such thing as mental health. The Buddha looked around and did not see any mentally healthy people. And other poor souls who were not mentally healthy. For the Buddha, to be a human being, was already to be crazy. If you're human, it means you're a lunatic, by definition. And if you doubt this, just read the newspaper tomorrow.

[33:33]

And consider the things that go on in the world every day as a matter of course. You can only conclude that this is a world of lunatics. Because any ordinary human life, even the best life under the best of conditions, is going to be full of wounds and confusion and all sorts of distracted and destructive actions and thoughts and emotions that cause suffering. Everybody. is in that condition. This is completely usual. So everybody here in the room thinks secretly that it's only me. Everybody else is okay. Well, the Buddha was very liberating. The Buddha said, don't worry. Yes, you are a lunatic. Don't pretend otherwise. But so is everybody else. People who we call mentally ill are simply extreme cases of the same syndrome that we all have.

[34:34]

This means that for the Buddha, enlightenment, awakening, supreme spiritual achievement basically comes down to simply being normal. Normal. To disentangling the knot of grasping and suffering and just being able to live a human life with full enjoyment and full appreciation and no craziness. So for the Buddha, there was no distinction between psychology and religion. For him, the only possible way that you could be completely whole in the body, in the mind, in the heart, would be to confront the deepest truths and tragedies of our being human. There was no limited way. You had to see it all, deal with it all. And the more you were willing to do this, he taught, the more happiness you can have and the more you can be a blessing to others.

[35:47]

Now, there's a phrase. The sutra has a lot of repeated formulaic phrases in it that are repeated over and over again throughout the sutra. And one of the phrases that's repeated many times... is a very strange phrase that most commentators kind of gloss over. They say a few words about because they feel obligated to, but they don't really emphasize it. And the phrase is, it'll say, practice awareness of the body inside and outside. Practice awareness of the feelings, sensations, inside and outside. Practice awareness of emotional and mental states, inside and outside. Practice awareness of the patterns of mind, inside and outside. And I think this is a really important point which I think has been unnoticed mostly in this sutra. What does it mean? How can you practice awareness inside and outside?

[36:53]

I think we all imagine that mindfulness, awareness is about going deeply inside, right? And if you spend many days, most Buddhist meditation groups that practice mindfulness do retreats in silence. And if you spend, you know, seven days in a session or 10 or 30 or 90 days in a Vipassana retreat in silence, it certainly looks like the point is to go inside, deeper and deeper inside. I remember some decades ago, the Pope issued an encyclical in which he complained about meditation. And I remember this because I happened to be at a big meeting of Buddhist and Catholic monastics when this encyclical came out, so it became the big topic of conversation.

[38:00]

This was during the days of Pope John II. John Paul, that is, Pope John Paul II. And the encyclical was written by Cardinal Ratzinger, who later became Benedict, Pope Benedict. And I think the reason they wrote this encyclical against meditation was because so many Catholic monastics were practicing meditation. It caught their notice, you know. And I think that the Pope and the Cardinal had many doubts about this meditation that all these Catholic monastics were doing. And in the encyclical, they complained that meditation makes you go inside too much. And when you go inside too much, you forget about others. You get too self-obsessed, and you forget about others. And you forget about compassion, which is one of the chief teachings of the Church.

[39:05]

So in this meeting, everybody was up in arms about this encyclical, especially the Catholics, who were meditators. Most Catholic monastics don't really ever like the Pope much. They can't say that. But if you talk to them, they will always say, oh, the Pope, he's a politician. So they were upset, and so were the Buddhists. And so many speeches were given in this meeting about the Pope's encyclical. But I myself thought, you know, I think maybe he's right. Maybe the Pope is right. Maybe he's actually giving a very good teaching about meditation practice. Because meditation practice is actually not supposed to be about going inside. It's not really supposed to be about figuring yourself out and fixing yourself up. When the Mindfulness Sutra says, practice mindfulness inside and outside, equally, which is what it says, it means that when you really notice your life as it actually is, you realize your life is not personal.

[40:28]

It's not so personal. You realize that a great deal of your suffering is that you're taking your life too personally. And if you really practice mindfulness, you won't take your life so personally anymore. You'll see, for instance, in the breath, that this breath is not my breath. This is breath. Everybody is breathing in just the same way. Everybody is embodied in just the same way. Everybody is feeling pain, suffering, happiness, joy, grief, in just the same way. Outside and inside. You let go with yourself. And that's the only way you can really appreciate yourself. You let go with others, and that's the only way you can really appreciate others. If you think that others are others and self is self, already you're suffering. You're already suffering. That's actually the cause of suffering, isn't it?

[41:35]

I am I, and you are you, And I want you to give me what I need. And I want you to stay out of my way. Isn't that really what I and you already is about? Isn't it? Give me what I need and stay out of my way. And already, this is a contradiction, right? Because usually if you give me what I need, you're going to be in my way. And if you get out of my way, you're not going to give me what I need. So already, just with you and I, we already have the conditions for suffering and loneliness and existential pain. And so we spend our lifetime fighting with one another. At the same time, we're clinging to one another.

[42:38]

and we spend a lifetime fighting with ourselves at the same time. We're clinging to ourselves. When you practice mindfulness inside and outside, it shows you that you cannot love yourself unless you can love others. And you cannot love others unless you can love yourself. If we sacrifice ourself and our needs, In order to love others, I think in the end we're not really loving others. We're controlling. We're needy. To take care of ourselves is to take care of others. To take care of others is to take care of ourselves. Self and others is not real. It's only an apparent distinction. An important apparent distinction that we have to honor in this world that we live in, but it's not real. It only looks like I'm over here and you're over there.

[43:46]

I'm speaking and you're listening. That's what it looks like. But the truth of the matter is you and I and the whole earth and the whole sky is one body, one breath that we're all breathing together, one Buddha heart. If you carefully practice just being present over time, this becomes very apparent. It's there in every breath, and we will all know it in our bones. In Buddhism, we take the triple refuge in all of our rituals. This afternoon, we're going to have an ordination ceremony, and we will Take the triple refuge, refuge in Buddha, Dharma, Sangha. Not here at Green Gulch, but somewhere else.

[44:50]

And Buddha. When you take refuge in Buddha, you're taking refuge in this awakened nature, which is the essential quality of your own heart. The same awakened nature that's in every heart. even hearts of plants and animals and wind. To take refuge in Buddha is to never forget to always have confidence in the truth of your own heart to return over and over again to your best nature that you share with everything and everyone. Dharma is the peaceful and kindly way of life that we will live when we fully take refuge in Buddha. To take refuge in Dharma is to live according to precepts.

[45:56]

In other words, to live with care and kindness for all beings. To know that you are with and responsible for and to everything and everyone and to live that way. Not to think that your life is about you. What a recipe for pain, you know? No. You're always with everyone. You have to live that way. That's dharma. And sangha is community. The community of all beings. That's one being. But also, sangha is just ourselves and the people that we practice with, our friends, our family, especially those that we practice Dharma with, practice meditation with, to take refuge in Sangha, to return to our sense of belonging with and to others. Thank you for listening to this podcast offered by the San Francisco Zen Center.

[47:08]

Our programs are made possible by the donations we receive. Please help us to continue to realize and actualize the practice of giving by offering your financial support. For more information, visit sfzc.org and click Giving. May we fully enjoy the Dharma.

[47:33]

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