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. Someone asked me recently. They said, well, I've been... meditating for about a month 20 minutes a day and I'd like to know how long do I have to do this how long does anyone have to do this before you can just sit down and your mind is completely quiet and serene it was a very interesting setting it was On my last visit to the city, I was at the hospice board meeting, and this was a member of the hospice board.

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Thought he'd sneak it in before we were the first two to arrive. We're having a special meeting to look at the changing trends in the healthcare industry. which you'll be happy to know is moving from a fee-for-service paradigm to a holistic notion of how to provide health care in the middle of all that what is it the practice and when you come with a particular goal Could someone please set a time frame for when that goal is going to be realized? So honestly, my first thought that came into my head was, 30 years.

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I thought, I must be tired. That's a little pessimistic. Then I thought, a second? I thought, no, just play it straight. Answer the question. LAUGHTER So I said something like, well, honestly, to get a thoroughgoing competency where you've seen enough of the machinations of your own mind that you can just sit there with them with some degree, spaciousness about 10 years and being who he is I think he liked it okay that's long enough and challenging enough sounds plausible

[03:36]

do we do with this mind what do we do with this turmoil this ever-arising activity of consciousness how long is it going to take So in one way we take that question on, just as it is. What is it to work thoroughly, fully, disciplined, dedicated, with water rises? And then in another way we turn it on its head. Who said there's a problem? Who said there's some work needs to be done?

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Who is it that's picking and choosing and what is it that's being used as the gauge for this picking and choosing? The great way is not difficult. Just don't pick and choose. And yet that phrase is more or less useless as a notion. So what? We all know that. But we all pick and choose. It's in our bones. Maybe it's in our DNA. So yesterday I brought up this koan by Banzan. student of Basso. Please remember, every coin is like asking, what color is red?

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It's not asking for an intellectual answer. It's not asking for pieces of information. It's inviting experience. What color is red? How can you answer that? Experience red. Can it be put into words? Why not? Can the words totally capture and express redness? No. Still, the inquiry can can set the stage, can initiate, can draw us close. And then we step off the 100-foot pole. So Banzan's offering.

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When there's not a thing, what is mind? Now the translation says, when the three realms, the three realms of existence, the realm of desire, the realm of form, and the realm of no form, formless, when they don't exist, what is mine? Yesterday I was offering the practice of inhale. A very useful habit to have. And of course, when joined with exhale, an excellent combination. How to go beyond picking and choosing.

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With each inhale, let what is be embraced, breathed in. What could be more intimate than becoming what is with each inhale? Of course, given the natures of our mind, we can turn that into something to struggle with, to succeed with, to feel with. But the intention is, can it keep asking us what color is red? Can it keep drawing us back? experiencing, embracing what is? Can it keep opening and opening to what's coming up?

[09:40]

the amazing process of experiencing. As we experience, we forget the word color, we forget the word red, and something, some sensation is experienced. And wonderfully, it delights us. great mystery and paradox of practice. Our deep-seated hesitancy and yet when we enter in there's joy to open

[10:55]

open to open. And to let opening with the breath teach something about opening in the myriad ways a human being can open. And in that opening, in that experiencing, the substantiality, the independent existence, the permanence, they all start to melt. And Banzan says, when that's starting to happen, when the world's being turned inside out, how is it? How is consciousness? How is so-called mind?

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He's just asking what color is red. He's not looking for some profound prescription or description. In all this, in service of aligning our resolve and refining our effort. How long does it take to settle the mind? Well, one inhale, of course. mind is utterly ephemeral, engaged appropriately, it's no hindrance.

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Think of Harada Shoto Roshi saying to me, and on the first, you sit down to meditate, and on the first breath, on the first exhale, the mind is completely and utterly settled. Of course, his first exhale lasts the product of diligence, the product of continuing practice. Enlightenment has no beginning. Practice has no end.

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how to attune with this, how to let this come forth, this subtle inquiry. As we turn the world inside out, the way in which our energy has been divested into the arisings, particulars, the memories, the fantasies, the anticipations. As we stop engaging in that sort of activity, a returning. A returning to a more integrated, energetic presence.

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This is the steady work of our diligent practice. How long does it take to settle the mind? Maybe 30 years. Maybe 60. So this is the dance of Sashin. Sustaining a diligent, steady practice. midst of all the different mind states physical states that can arise and then right along with it remembering discovering that this all of this is simply a conditioned expression it's just simply something

[17:10]

that you're participating in constructing. And each exhale offers the opportunity to let go of that construct. So this is how we breathe. This is how we sit, sitting as if every breath was a matter of life and death. And that the very nature of what arises teaches us, when it's engaged with awareness, teaches us exactly what is realization.

[18:24]

This person who was asking me this question at the hospice board meeting made a fortune in the internet business about 12 years ago when it was in its first phase of extravagance. It was interesting because he and all his buddies were in the right place at the right time. And they were all nominally worth the fortune. And he thought, why would I need to keep doing this? This is more money than I could ever want. There must be other things in life to do. I'm going to cash out. And lo and behold, without knowing it, his timing was perfect.

[19:40]

He cashed out, and not long after, the whole thing went on a great slide. And he was left with nothing but buckets of money. Big buckets. Asking himself, Now what? It's just interesting to come into that room. And there are many details to his life that our lives have intertwined in a variety of ways. We have a very close mutual friend.

[20:42]

In his fine suit, developed expression. It came from humble beginnings. That somehow to be of service has become an important notion. And luckily for us at the hospice, the more he does it, the more he seems to want to do it. And now this other dangerous notion that maybe he should start to meditate. We all know that one.

[21:52]

starts off so grand, so intriguing. It will undo us. will bring forth our humility to say yes to everything arises is to say yes to all that a human mind can conjure up and in case you haven't noticed a human mind can conjure up an amazing bunch of stuff that see a mind that can obsess on what in a sane day would seem like utter pettiness, can marvel at the play of the morning light in the trees, can get annoyed by the mere body movements of the person beside them,

[23:30]

and have compassion for the whole world. And Banzan says, when none of that is grasped, when none of that is clung to and substantiated and made real, what is mine? This is the inquiry of Zazen. This is quickening, not knowing. This is the courage and the humility of the inhale.

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This is the backbone of upright sitting. That all this that's grasped can be released. As surely as we breathe in, we can breathe out. As surely as we stop resisting, hesitating, suppressing. As surely as we can open, noticing the details of opening.

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The mind of opening. the chest of opening, the abdomen of opening. Just as surely as that release, or letting go. And the knack of Shashin notice how often we let go despite ourselves we're busy practicing and then we switch gears and in that moment we forget ourselves and the world floods in not the world held together by our personal intrigues but a different vibrant fresh momentary world maybe we can say

[27:24]

Be aware when you're aware when you're aware. But it's really halfway there. When you're aware, take a stab of a hundred foot pole. Let that moment flood you. Immerse. Soak it up like a sponge soaking up water. And what kind of effort is that? More like an effortless effort. More like getting out of your own way. like the things that you determinedly worry about, get annoyed by, yearn for.

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Something gives them permission, some way of being gives them permission to release. This kind of exhale. This is stepping off the 100-foot pole. The koan says, when you step off the 100-foot pole, the whole world supports you. also translated as the whole world becomes your body. More exactly, your body and the body of the world are not separate. So inside Zazen,

[30:01]

we become the willing captives of our own diligence. And despite ourselves, that diligence becomes devotion. I saw a documentary several months ago in the fall. I think it was called Jiru Makes Sushi, about a sushi maker in Kyoto. The whole thing was charming and ridiculous.

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and a deep message, a deep teaching for practitioners. And I thought it culminated when Jiru, a now world-renowned, literally world-renowned sushi maker in his late 70s, says, find the work of your life and not only do it, but love it. You must love it to do it well. And we're foolish enough to bring that notion to being present. Even though existentially

[32:21]

we are profoundly ambivalent this request gets left in front of us and each breath and of course when I say each breath I simply mean engaging the activity of each moment. I just offer that as a convenient and I would say skillful process that can be engaged in the service of continuous contact. continuous contact will initiate those momentary connections with justice the continuous contact will loosen up the binding of the world according to me with its agitations and desires the continuous contact

[33:55]

will ripen the opportunity for one pointed, deeper connection to the moment, this immersion. As we settle in this machine to make this the agenda of our life, the humble request of Zazen this is the humble request of sushi how do we do this how do we allow how do we enable something some process to become lovable and how do we fall in love

[35:05]

this activity we shift from diligence to devotion easy words to say to watch the movements of your mind and heart to watch when your awareness reaches out, grabs, makes substantial, energizes, moves off with, and how that reflects back shaping your state of mind, your body. And can that

[36:10]

Be released with the exhale. So on one hand, what is it to drop everything? And on the other, what is it to open to everything? What is it to step off the 100-foot pole into the unknown? And what is it to let everything become your body? And fortunately, we have a poem to instruct us in this very process by marvelous coincidence. Bud stands for all things, even those things that don't flower.

[37:21]

For everything flowers from within of self-blessing. Though sometimes it's necessary to reteach a thing its loveliness, to put a hand on the brow of the flower and retell it in words and in touch, it is lovely. This is the contact, the touch and open to in the experiencing. We don't experience as an act of determination, of diligence. We experience as an act of appreciation. I remember doing hospice work, patiently feeding someone who was very weak, very close to death.

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Tiny bite by tiny bite. And then, sometime later, leaving the hospice and walking up the street and thinking, Well, my body moves. I can move these arms and legs at will. I can walk up this street with no great effort. Like this. as we walk and move around this spring paradise. To reteach a thing its loveliness, to put a hand on its brow, on the brow of a flower, and retell it in words and in touch its lovely, until it flowers again from within of self-blessing.

[39:53]

As St. Francis put his hand on the creased forehead of the sow and told her in words and in touch, blessings of earth on the sow. And the sow began to remember all the way down her thick length from the earth and snout all the way through the fodder to the fodder and the slops to the spiritual curl of the tail. from the hard spininess spiked out from the spine down through the great broken heart to the sheer blue milk and dreaminess spurting and shuddering from the fourteen teeth into the fourteen mouths sucking and blowing beneath them. The long perfect loveliness of the sow. diligence and our devotion are the perfect couple something in our diligence keeps us true keeps us honest keeps us humble keeps us grounded keeps showing us how

[41:36]

to turn this world that's so real, substantial, and permanent, inside out. And then our devotion lets us fall in love, lets us appreciate those moments when something caught your eye. caught your ear, caught your mind, touched your body. To let it soak you up. To let it absorb you. Unlike the inhale and the exhale, the movement is what refines us.

[42:46]

As Antonio Machado says, between the substantial and the non-existent, there's a third way. Guess it. Between living and dreaming, there's a third way. Guess it. The combination. Like the front and back foot in walking. So please, When your practice asks of you to sit still forever, sit still forever. When your practice asks for you to disappear into the breeze and float off with the bees, do it as an act of love.

[44:05]

This is what facilitates the capacity to pick it up, to put it down. This is what facilitates the versatility of response to an ever-changing world. If we get caught in the notion practice is always like this, miss at least half of what's going on. The koan is just what color is red? What is the sign of the blue jay? What is the smell of the spring flowers? What is the heat of the sun?

[45:13]

What is the deep stillness of sitting long and still? What is the body of sitting long and still? What is the inhale that only knows, yes, What is the exhale that only knows release? What is don't know? How long does it take be able to sit down and sit still and let the mind not be a hindrance when the request of practice is met there is no problem

[46:45]

when the request of practice is not met, there's never enough time for such a thing to happen. So please, let Shishin... soak you up. Don't bother putting your energy into staying separate. As Dogen Zenji says, this is the way of all the Buddhas and ancestors. transmission is not some fabulous wisdom.

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The transmission is the process. And then whatever arises provides the answer. Whatever arises as its own loveliness. 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.

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