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. I'm feeling some aversion to speaking. An unusual event in my life. because Christina and Le, Dharma teacher, Marsha, invited me to speak today, and Christina asked me to speak about, if I remember what my practice was when I began, since I'm still a beginner, it's not so hard.

[01:28]

And I think I'll start with when I came, when I was a beginner in Zen, which is, I think it was around 15 years or so ago. I'm not, I can't, I don't keep dates in my mind. Just like I don't keep directions in my mind. Like, this is the first shuso you've probably seen that wishes I had been given a GPS in terms of how to, how am I supposed to turn? Should I turn right? Should I turn left? Should I turn left? And I feel really fortunate to have this teamwork of people that keeps turning my body in the right way, or goes like this, and says, oh, you're supposed to chant now. And it's like, oh, yeah. When I first went to Green Gulch Farm, which is my first Zen practice center, I'd gone to a Zen center in Los Angeles, because I'd made the decision I was going to come to Green Gulch, and they had accepted my application.

[02:36]

And so I went to the Zen Center in Los Angeles. I could learn the forms, and they looked just outrageous to me, all these people in black. Each time it looked like they bowed. They bowed sometimes with God's show, and sometimes they bowed like this, and I couldn't keep track. And I thought, you know, this is kind of a crazy thing to do, but my teacher suggested I go to Green Gulch and so that's what I'm going to do. My first practice period at Green Gulch, what I noticed the most was how out of sync with everyone I felt. Everybody seemed to know everybody and they seem to have best buddies, and they all seem to know how to practice. And I really, somebody said to me once, I was talking about something that I was having difficulty with with two other people in the dining room, and one of them says, well, what's your practice around that?

[03:48]

And I said, what? Like I didn't even really know, what did they mean? What is your practice? around that. And they looked at each other and smiled and I sat there feeling foolish. They didn't say anything more and from that moment on for quite some time I sat at the silent table. I felt like I was, if I hadn't felt different before, I felt really different then. It was very painful. But I'm a social type so sitting at the silent table didn't last It just felt long. And I began to understand as I was there for a while that I was there to practice being awake. And that when somebody said, and what's your practice around this? It's like, how am I relating to this? Am I relating to what comes up internally or somebody addresses me in a habit-patterned way?

[04:56]

how am I relating? What is my practice with this? And so that, that I felt was so painful, was very helpful to me. Pain is a great teacher. I was in the midst of my first practice period, and Reb Anderson was the teacher, and we would have tea with him every day. And what I had noticed was I started crying in Zinda. And sometimes the crying would come, be accompanied by a story about what the tears were about. Sometimes there wasn't a story. There were just the tears. And so I brought up in the practice period tea, I said, I'm crying a lot.

[06:00]

I hope I'm not disturbing anybody. I'm trying to blow my nose quietly and not sob. And if when I meet you on the road, I start to cry, it probably has nothing to do with you. I just filled with a lot of tears. And I cried for... a whole January practice period. It's probably a little bit of an exaggeration, but that's how it felt. A lot of doubt was coming up. What am I doing here? Why am I here? What does awake mean? Who am I to think that I could ever be awake and be liberated from A lifetime of pain. And aversion came up big time. That came up and that was, I didn't want to sit.

[07:02]

I felt pretty angry at everybody who looked like they wanted to sit. And I had a lot of judgment about them, just like being sheep going in. You know, when the bell rang, I didn't see the beauty of being able to lay down in a schedule and to have the bells just take care of. calling us to the Zendo. It just didn't even occur to me. And so my aversion showed up by being late almost every day. This good girl is just not getting to the temple on time. And I hardly, I didn't walk Hin Hin. This was probably near the end of my first year. Didn't walk Hin Hin. I always had to go to the bathroom. Always had to stretch. Hin Hin was not for me Nobody was going to tell me what to do. So a version came up, I mean, it sounds so little, but being such a good girl, those were big time resistances, rebellions for me.

[08:06]

I also, I don't know if this is so, I have an idea that Thinking, thinking, thinking and engaging with memories and what I'm going to do when I get out of here was also for me a subtle resistance or maybe a big time resistance to not paying attention to my direct experience. I've been paying a lot of attention to my direct experience. I didn't know how to do that then. And I want to talk to you a bit about an experience I had yesterday. That included what I talked about, I think, the last time I was here.

[09:23]

And that was an accompanied... Well, let me start another place. I was very taken with a phrase that Christina used, I think it was yesterday, temporarily existing. I hadn't ever really put the impermanence of all things. The causes and conditions, this is what arises, forms arise. And then when causes and conditions change and everything changes all of the time.

[10:25]

then that that has arisen ceases to be. And so everything is temporarily existing, including us. So I was very taken with that and temporarily existing in the stream of life. Everything in the stream of life also temporarily existing. And we're temporarily existing as... sensing organisms. You know, when we chant eyes, ears, nose, throat, body, mind, sight, sound, smell, taste. Did I leave it consciousness? Leave anything out. We're sensing organs. This whole bunch of stuff, sensing, and based on the sensory input, the mind with consciousness makes a decision. We have the capacity to be aware of what's actually happening.

[11:36]

And often we are not. We're walking around in a dream made up of thoughts about the past or what we might do in the future. And we're not aware, you know. We're caught in the habit patterns of paying attention to what comes to us through the intellect, through the mind. Direct experience is about being very aware of what's happening here in this body, here in this body. Our bodies tell us exactly what's going on. Bodies don't lie. Thoughts just spring up. You know, the mind just secretes them like sweat glands. they're not necessarily true. And many of them aren't even relevant to what's happening right now.

[12:40]

But when we focus on what's happening in the body, the body begins to reveal to us what is actually happening. We have to stay very close and very close attention to what's happening in the body, welcoming everything, not pushing anything away, sitting right in the middle of things, bringing our whole selves right in the middle of things. Cultivating don't know mind has been my best friend. I don't know what's going on. When I was sitting at Green Gulch and I didn't know what the tears were, I criticized myself. I don't know what's going on. I must know what's going on. I must know what these tears are about.

[13:41]

And I could attach them to all kinds of stories. But it didn't really matter. The tears just kept on coming. Because I wasn't paying attention to the experience of the whole body weeping. I didn't know to do that. And so then when I didn't know what was happening, and I kept trying to figure it out, that became something bad about me. Now I understand don't know mind is not a bad thing. It's actually a wonderful element of our ability to practice with what's happening. If we already know what's happening, or we're engaging in the stories about what's happening. We are not in direct experience with what's happening. This happened for me yesterday. I was very, very tired. And I went home to sleep for a while.

[14:45]

And I started to cry. But not like... like this kind of crying, like not sobbing, just tears coming. They were very familiar. A couple of weeks into the practice period, I started to notice I'd be in the middle of a task and there'd be like these little, little tears coming and I'd blink them away because I'm working or I'm going to be seeing a client in a few minutes. very familiar habit pattern. And then I got up from my nap and I came to the Zen Tao. And I felt my body get very rigid and tight and almost

[15:56]

almost bent over. And this time the question came, I don't know what's going on. What is going on? And tears started to come. And I started to have memories of painful events. And I realized, that that wasn't the right place to be focusing my attention. So I removed my attention from those events as they came. I felt like a slug of them. And I went right to the body, and the body wept for a while. and I remembered something a teacher said at a practice center I was at around 30 years ago.

[16:59]

They were doing construction at this center. We were meditating, and they were knocking down walls. And he said to us, sound is, noise is mind's invention. And since I moved to this temple, living in an urban life, It's really helped me to remember sound is, noise is mind's invention. And that came up for me, and it was irrelevant that I'm trying to say whether this weeping is good or bad or valid or not, or... trying to figure out, you know, should I avoid this or not? Are these positive tears or negative tears, you know, trying to judge them? And it's like, oh, tears are.

[18:04]

Labeling them as mine's invention. And joy arose with the tears. It's like, oh, yeah. This is direct experience. Oh, yeah. And then I paid attention to what's happening. How did joy arise? What happened? Because I had also a thought came up that Christina and Marcia had asked me to offer a talk today. And so I wanted to know, how did that happen? How can I tell you how that happened? That in the midst of pain, the suffering was released. And actually the pain found its way out. The tears stopped for a while. I'm not quite sure what I'm expressing to you because I'm not really in a thinking mode.

[19:15]

What I can say is staying close to experience as it is in the body is my best friend. It's just so helpful to allow myself to be awake to actually what's happening. It's a very liberating experience. And I wish this for you. I wish to encourage you to pay attention to what's going on in your body. I'm going to be continuing to do that. Let's see, we go, I've got 10.35. What is the time limit?

[20:22]

Thank you. I remembered this last night as I went into my habitat pattern wanting to prepare some things. Suppose I have nothing to say and then I said to myself, well, that's okay. I was asked to speak, but it wasn't a demand. You know, it's okay. But the habit pattern came up. What can I speak about? And I already knew I was going to speak about my experience yesterday. I thought I would tell you a story that goes around, has gone around Buddhist circles for a long time. A man is on a boat. I changed it to person because I heard it. It was a man was on a boat and I wanted to be gender free. But because that's how I heard it, I think I'll just say a man was in a boat on a very rocky ocean. And it was so rocky, and he could see even more storm clouds coming.

[21:29]

It looked... You know how you see these pictures of people wearing their slickers on these boats, and they're looking, they say, oh, it looks like a nor'easter is coming. Well, it was like that. And so he's... getting kind of panicky, a bit scared. And he's trying to plan, what can I do? He's in the middle of this ocean. He doesn't see anything around. And he's really panicking. And he's paying attention to, this is going to be my last day. And this is awful. And I should have said goodbye to people in a loving way rather than yelling at my wife before I left the house. And all of those kinds of thoughts that we hear people have when they think that death is right around the corner. And then it got the Northeasterner. Northeasterner came or Nor'easter came. And he got thrown out of the boat. And so all of a sudden he finds himself in this very choppy water.

[22:32]

And he has this conflict. He thinks he sees an island. over there. And the boat is drifting off over here. What should I do? Should I try to swim to get the boat and climb in the boat? Should I try to swim and get to the island? And he's trying to analyze it all, and this is going to be my last day, and I remember when so-and-so said that to me, and I should have said that to this other person, and in the meantime, he's in the midst of this storm, and in the midst of this conflict, and he's starting to go down, and then bob back up, and then he decides he's going to swim for that island, and he is striving to get to that island. He is as much as he can, using all of his strength to get to the island. So I'm going to stop that story right now and tell you this story in a different way.

[23:41]

Here's this man in the same circumstances. He's in this boat. The Nor'easter is coming. And he goes through all the same stuff that this previous guy went through. And then the boat knocks him up out of the water, into the water. And he starts to do the same thing, the same conflict. Which way should I turn? And he decides to go for the island. And he's swimming as fast as he can. And he realizes, I don't think I can make it. And then it occurs to him that he can simply turn over and float. relaxation came in the midst of the choppy water with floating.

[24:43]

Simply being there was what was happening. Recognizing, having uncovered for him the ability to relax and to float. What got revealed to him was what the Buddha has, I've understood, has said, And that is, be an island unto yourself. Shine the light inward on yourself. I see in myself that so often I look for something outside of me that's going to protect me or take care of me or if I'm only good, you'll give me something I want or like that. But that always falls away, you know, looking somewhere else for what's already inside of us. So he just turned over and he floated.

[25:51]

And I think that story came up for me. I'm not sure. In relationship to seeing that... I could tolerate, I could stand, have enough confidence in the practice that I could simply float with the storm that had descended on me yesterday. I just turned over and floated. And the whole body relaxed. That doesn't mean that the feeling was pleasant. What it means was that I could keep company. what was expressing itself to me through the body. Our practice offers us the capacity to discern what's actually happening.

[26:52]

And so when something comes up and I ask myself, so what is my practice with this? A lot of the time I don't know. But I keep asking the question. The answer isn't as important as the question. And staying close to what is showing itself to me, being right in the middle of whatever is showing itself to me, without aversion, without trying to bring it closer. So I wanted to tell you about this today in a wish to encourage you to stay with whatever shows itself to you. It's showing itself to you at just the right time, just the right place, or it wouldn't be coming.

[27:55]

Don't wait. So I see it's almost a quarter to 11, which means there's time for comments or questions. I appreciate the quietude in the room. Yeah? I wanted to let you know that I spent the period before your talk, crying, the whole period. I find Hizendo a very safe place to cry because when my heart hurt is so bad, I can't stand it to have it in my chest anymore. I can just hand it over to the people sitting in Hizendo and they will take care of it for me for the 35 or 40 minutes of sitting. And you're right, that's a way to float and it feels better on this side to have entrusted when the pain got too much.

[29:00]

That being with people, it won't be for me what I could afford if you won't want it. So I totally support that. Thank you. We do have Kleenex all over this place. I've noticed it. Thank you. I hear that great pain and great love are too strong as motivators. And I just wonder, your experience at Green Gulch, after that painful experience at the table and that walking campaign, did that transcend into love and how long were you there? Well, I lived at Green Gulch for around five years. And... I'm not sure how to respond because... I would have different experience and different waves of feelings or relationships to different experiences.

[30:08]

And I learned how to practice strenuously at Green Gulch and strengthen the muscle to practice. I found it a challenging community in that so much physical labor is required of people. I guess I was, what was I, in my late 50s or something like that. And I really pushed and pushed and pushed. And I found it very difficult. It was also like, well, how do I practice with this? And how do I practice with this? And how do I practice with this? When everything goes along and it seems quite easy, we have a tendency, or I have a tendency to be lazy. Why do I have to practice if everything's going really well?

[31:11]

But the difficulty is nothing stays going really well. There's always something to practice it. So Green Gulch, I would say it was a really great experience for me, as I'm saying it, because I really learned to practice with difficulty there. Do you feel accepted by the community? That question would have a different answer according to the day you asked me. And there's a part of me that doesn't quite feel accepted anywhere. So I don't know that that had to do with Green Gulch. Sometimes I know she'll accept it here. You know, like that. Yeah.

[32:17]

You really hit a really, really significant point for me, which is something I've kind of been battling to practice over several years. You sat in the dining room, and I forget what your thought was. And two practitioners said, well, practice with that. And you were like, what was that supposed to be? And you went and sat at this silent table because you were very hurt, because you didn't know how to, if I understood you correctly, you didn't necessarily know how to process that. I just find that's something that always comes up for me in practice a lot. You think, well, at least I do, I feel like I get a general idea or an understanding. And then, again, you try to practice with that. And then, you know, if you look back into your cushion and you fall all apart, scratch your head, going, what's that supposed to mean again? How do you motivate yourself from moving forward with something like that? So how long have you been practicing? Six years now. Oh! How are you keeping yourself motivated? I'm going to...

[33:19]

are you keeping yourself motivated? Are you coming six years? You're practicing? Oh, I'm guessing you've tasted something other than agitation. I'm guessing that the silence that's underneath everything, the relaxation that's underneath everything has shown itself to you. Is that so? Yeah. That's right. Yeah, that's how it seems to be how it works for me. Sometimes they forget, and it's like, I don't want to go, and sometimes they don't go, or, you know, like that. And then I remember, and I hang out with people that are doing the practice, because then I look at who they are being, and it's like, oh man, I have to get my tush back on the kush. Did you hear me?

[34:24]

Yeah, I thought I saw you. Could you talk a little bit more, which I know you said you can't really talk about because you're not in the key place right now, but when something comes up and it's painful or you have an aversion to it, I think you were describing how you went from kind of here into your body, and I've learned to stay with pain and tolerate it and stay in that place. It was in your body? No, that's the thing. I feel like I'm in that other that you were describing, that first part. And I'm wondering, it doesn't feel like that part, the second part, the body part. Oh, that's great. Did everybody hear her? Anybody not hear her? Okay. So she's talking about being in her head a lot with the pain. And how do you get yourself in the body? Is that? Okay. Okay. What I do is I have a renunciation practice.

[35:28]

I make a decision not to be engaging with the thoughts. I notice the thoughts. Yep, you're here. And I don't invite them in for tea. I come to my body. And the thoughts go... And it's so funny because sometimes, I mean, for me, it's like the thoughts are coming from the left. Very funny. And so I notice them and then I go right to my body. And I sit up really straight because I've noticed when I'm thinking I have a tendency, you know, I go like this because I'm trying to think, I'm striving to understand the thoughts. So I check out what's happening in the body and that's what I usually notice. And so then I sit up straight. And I pay attention to what's going on. And I usually pay attention to what's going on right here. And then the thoughts come again.

[36:31]

Yeah, I see you. And then I pay attention to the body. And sometimes I might pay attention to what's going on in my left knee or my right toe or to keep my attention in the body. And over time, the thoughts find their own way out. Engaging with them feeds them. If we don't feed them, they become less interested in visiting us. At least that's how I frame it. You might experiment with that and see what happens. Yes? One more. Oh, yes. For my body, I find it almost even more fidgety. What do you find that? What do you do with that? Well, sometimes when I have restless body, fidgety body, I notice exactly where it is.

[37:37]

Is the body fidgety all over? Is there more fidgety on the left side or the right? Is there any place in the body that isn't fidgety? Like, I pay attention to all the details of what I'm calling fidgety. And sometimes I find something else. Sometimes, this is me, I find that there's anxiety about something that's being reflected in the body with the body being restless. Oh, okay. Huh. What's happening in the heart region? Is the heart region fidgety? Are my eyelids fidgety? And I just keep playing with what is this body telling me with its restlessness? And sometimes I have to ask that question for a long time. I mean, if there is such a thing as a long time, we're in a Zen temple.

[38:38]

Oh, so what you notice is... Oh, that the body is fidgety because I haven't found my balance yet. So then see if you can find your balance. That's what the body is saying. I want to feel balanced. And then see what happens. And sometimes it takes a lot of experimentation to find the right posture. How long have you been practicing? Yeah. Sometimes it takes a little longer maybe than four years to find the right balance. I don't know. Vicki will be here, I think, tomorrow. And so I would highly recommend that during the time of walking or exercise, that perhaps you'll meet Vicki. She's really been very helpful to people with how to find their balance in the sitting posture.

[39:40]

So I think we need to stop now. And I need to be reminded, do we do a chant now? Could somebody jumpstart me? Thank you for listening to this podcast offered by the San Francisco Zen Center. Our Dharma talks are offered at no cost 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 sfcc.org and click giving. May we fully enjoy the Dharma.

[40:19]

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