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. Good morning, everybody. Well, that was an interesting beginning. I was... When I went bow, I wanted to, I just, I faked you all out. I was wanting to remember to wait for the people with ocasas to lay out their zagus, but you all just went flying to the floor. So I bowed three times and you bowed four. So, well, that's, that's what happens when we get a little loose around the edges, I guess. I just wanna say that I just find this to be an extraordinary sesheen and I just, I might not get another chance to express to you all as a group how much I appreciate how settled and concentrated you all are and how we just have the most wonderful still container here that we've developed together.

[01:25]

It's really, very moving to sit together. So I wanted to say that. So we're still aligning all activity with the heart of Buddha. In Sashin, we might see it a little bit differently. We say activity maybe a little differently and maybe a little more subtly because it's not just our conduct. we might begin to look at activity in the activity of our mind and the activity of our breath. And aligning the activity of our mind with the heart of Buddha, that's a little more difficult than just following the precepts.

[02:28]

And in yoga the other day, Vicky said, you might think your mind is in your head. And then she slapped her thighs and she said, this is your body-mind. And so we're sitting there together and we're really noticing the activity of the body while sitting and the body-mind. Noticing where we're constricted Tense, relaxed, where we're constricted in our body-mind and where we're constricted in our thought-mind. And that's more subtle. Our body-mind, our mind-body. Maybe that's a better way to say it, our mind-body. So... Still, even so, in the Zendo, the heart of Buddha is palpable these days, I think.

[03:37]

This shared building of stillness in the midst of everything, in the midst of sirens, dogs, stereos, the stillness pervades all, big-hearted stillness in the midst of it all. So we can really experience how the heart of Buddha is always right here. And paradoxically, together, this collective container of sesshin really supports us to enter into the solitude. We enter into our own solitude with our karmic forces. And that safe container, that stillness, we go into that vast stillness and it supports us to meet those karmic forces head on.

[04:47]

Our unfinished business. Our karmic habits of conditioning. Our conditioned thought loops. that can make us believe delusions or believe that negative self-talk that some of us have managed to memorize. So facing into that, taking that step backward and beginning to see that these are just stories, that these are just memorized verses, and that in fact, they're really delusions. from the past. But we show up to meet it, and if we can feel it all the way to the bottom, in the zendo, it's a transformative kind of collective fierce attention we bring to it.

[05:50]

And in that situation, when we have that quality of attention, that fierce attention that gets cultivated in the stillness, that's when we can see these delusions dissolve. And we can see them for what they are. If we can stay with ourselves no matter what, if we continue with pain, with joy, with fatigue, Sometimes, even though we're working very hard, we start to feel like we just want to collapse. And instead there, this time we might choose, instead of collapsing or giving up, we might choose surrender. And I wrote a little piece about collapse and surrender for somebody who was sort of going through

[06:57]

A very difficult time. So surrender is a courageous, volitional act of embracing whatever is in us, arising in us, no matter what. No matter how painful, awesome, or inconceivable it is, with no difference, good or bad. Embracing whatever is arising in us, no matter what. On the other hand, collapse is often an act that comes out of delusion, an inability to see that one has choices because of a distorted belief or view of oneself, like I'm too weak, or I'm too damaged, or I'm too something, I'm too much, I'm too little. And to face this, to feel this, and to own that that's what we're doing, we can begin to see that this tendency to run or to start to collapse is usually fear-driven.

[08:17]

We say, I'm afraid. I can't. So I start to collapse and I give up instead of finding out what might happen if I just hang in there one more breath. And sometimes I know I've been in sessions where I really am going, okay, one more breath and then I'm leaving. And then I take one more breath. And I've gone through a whole period one breath at a time like that. But surrender can happen in a moment of grace or in a moment of courage or in a moment of curiosity just to see what would happen if what would happen if this time I just hung in here for one more breath to see what really is going to happen to see it as it is

[09:22]

So in the poem that Christina read yesterday, there was that phrase, when we fight with our failing, we ignore the entrance to the shrine itself. And we wrestle with the guardian, that fierce figure on the side of good. And I wanted to talk about that a little bit because that... I'm going to tell you about myself a little bit. Because I had this thing that came up in me where I had these parts of myself I just couldn't stand. And the image arose where these two really fat, greasy, huge women, and they were sort of guarding the gate of my deeper self. And the task was, until I could sort of embrace them,

[10:27]

and see their value, I was not going to get access to my own depths. And so in some way I had to sort of claim my own needy, greedy, insatiable self. And go, yeah, that's me. There I am. And find some way to actually see that Until I could do that, it was a way I was protecting myself from my most tender places. Until I could embrace myself unconditionally, I wasn't going to get access to my depths. So there's, sometimes that opportunity arises when we're sitting Sashim. And then, when you do, you get entry into the vastness of being a human being.

[11:38]

So now where am I? What happened? Okay. So, how do we do that? Well, we have to be patient. And Rilke, I'm gonna read another Rilke says this better than I could ever say it, so I'm gonna read his poem from a book, Letters to a Young Poet. Be patient toward all that is unresolved in your heart. Be patient toward all that is unresolved in your heart. Try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms, and like books written in a very foreign tongue. Do not seek now the answers which cannot be given to you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is to live everything.

[12:42]

Live the questions now. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, Live along some distant day into the answer. And I think this is just the most wonderful suggestion to just, and Lee had talked about living with the not knowing, to just live with that question and not worry about the answer. Walk with it. Have it in the periphery of your mental vision. Live with it. Live into it. Be patient toward all that is unresolved in your heart. And the point is to live everything. Live the questions now. So we have a choice.

[13:44]

And every time we notice those sphincters constrict, or we notice any kind of constriction, we have a choice to ask the question, as the chuseaux said on Sunday, you know, what's that about? What's that about? What am I getting tense about? Or can we just live into the question in our lives, keeping it in our peripheral vision that way? And can we just float with it? Float with it. Stop thrashing around and just float with the way it is, with the way you are, with the not knowing for a while. For the next breath. Maybe the next one too.

[14:45]

So, there's part of this thing that Hafiz wrote called Venus Just Asked Me, and I only like part of the poem, so I'm only going to read you the part that I liked. Perhaps, for just one minute a day, it might be of value to torture yourself with thoughts like... I should be doing a hell of a lot more with my life than I am because I'm so damn talented. It might be of value to torture yourself with thoughts like, I should be doing a hell of a lot more with my life than I am because I'm so damn talented. But remember, for just one minute out of the day, with all the rest of your time, it would be best to try looking upon yourself And he says, more as God does. But I'm saying more as Buddha does. Your Buddha nature is right there.

[15:59]

Everything else is just a story. Everything else is just a story. It's just what happened. This happened. That happened. You felt this way. You felt that way. But your Buddha nature doesn't depend on conditions. Your Buddha nature's there under all conditions. And you can just, it's on each breath. Well, I hardly have anything to say today. I have even less to say than you did yesterday.

[17:00]

But maybe it's because there isn't, there just isn't that much more to say. I'm going to tell you what Jane said, Jane Hirshfield. She says, it was like this. You were happy. It was like this. You were happy. Then... you were sad, then happy again, then not. It went on. You were innocent or you were guilty. Actions were taken or not. At times you spoke, at other times you were silent. Mostly, It seems you were silent. What could you say? Now it's almost over. Like a lover, your life bends down and kisses your life. It does this not in forgiveness.

[18:03]

Between you, there is nothing to forgive. But with the simple nod of a baker at the moment he sees the bread is finished with transformation. But with a simple nod of a baker, at the moment he sees the bread is finished with transformation, eating two is now a thing only for others. It doesn't matter what they will make of you or your days. They will be wrong. They will miss the wrong woman, miss the wrong man. All the stories they tell, will be tales of their own invention. Your story was this. You were happy, then you were sad. You slept. You awakened. Sometimes you ate roasted chestnuts, sometimes persimmons.

[19:09]

I just love this poem because it really helps us see This is it. There's no separation. We have this opportunity to experience life directly. The rest is just a story. We can drop the story right now. So maybe today, Maybe today, maybe today is the day we can just stop thinking altogether. Maybe we can just breathe into not knowing at all. Taking that mental and physical posture of stillness. Maybe we can just be.

[20:15]

Well, what do you think I had to do, Abbas? Yeah? Does anybody want to say anything? Yes? The time when I find it the hardest to surrender is when I feel that I'm not being met, and instead of being able to just be with that, I continue to reach out, pleading to say, please respond to me. So I'm wondering if you could say a little bit about surrendering when you're not met. Well, in that case, we're talking about surrendering to the way it is. Now it's like this. I'm not being met. Can I fully... embrace and move in accord with that that's what it is I'm not being seen I'm not being understood I can feel how alone I feel in this moment and can I be that compassionate witness and live into that moment that's what I

[21:53]

That's what comes to my mind. What I was thinking about when I was talking about it originally was being able to surrender to that, those experiences in myself that I tend to want to, that I have a version, that maybe I don't want to put myself in a position where I might be rejected, or I don't want to, something is coming up in me, some painful something, and I don't want to feel it. Can I surrender and allow myself to stand up in it rather than collapse away from it? To actually, it's sort of like a feeling of, okay, just bring it on. Let me just have what my life really is. or to know what to do against, and I need the response to help me move.

[22:53]

And so surrender is hard because I'm stuck, sort of paralyzed. So I'm looking for other to jump serve. And what happens if you just stay with that? Staying with the stuck. Floating into it. That's the heart. That's the challenge. Yeah. [...] So it's really to be this. This would be an opportunity. It's a real physical experience. of kind of freezing or shedding. And so then the thing is to really, there's two things.

[23:56]

One is to really start to notice the on-ramp if you can, so that you start to really break it down into smaller little pieces of experience. And then the other one is when it happens to really, there is some patience there that as hard as it is to actually, Really notice exactly where that freeze starts in your body and then every little quality about it down to the teeniest little piece that you can allow yourself to feel. Thank you. It's tough because some of these things, they happen like grease lightning. We don't see them just creeping up, it's like we're here and then all of a sudden, we feel like we lost ourselves or we're kind of shut down. And that takes, that takes enormous patience.

[25:02]

But if we, I really, my experience is over and over with others and myself, if I keep studying the physicality of that or that shutdown, and I have patience, slowly I start to see how it works, how it arises, how it operates, and I begin to start to see choices where I can, little by little, breathe into it and stay present for what my body feels or believes is dangerous in some way. And that's when I come up with a, I gotta, you've got to, I've got to something. And it's very, very difficult. And very humbling. Extremely humbling.

[26:03]

And keep your eyes open. Keep breathing. Keep looking at it. One day... Slowly, without even realizing it, you might find yourself.

[26:25]

@Transcribed_UNK
@Text_v005
@Score_96.31