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. Thinking about Shishin, two things occurred to me to say. Um... that it's helpful in doing sasheen to know what it is you're doing and to know how you're doing it and the other thing something about the feeling the attitude the disposition with which we engage sasheen It's so enticing, the involvement in the intrigues of our life, some of them painfully obvious and familiar, some of them lurking.

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We feel their influence, not quite knowing the extent or the content of what they are. some of them subtle, held in how we touch our fingertips, our thumbtips together, how we hold our shoulders, how we hold some tension in our diaphragm or in our face. And how Shashin is this marvelous opportunity to explore, to discover, to realize something about this one I call me, something about human nature.

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something about the nature of consciousness and something about the nature of all being. Always entering, engaging, connecting through what's happening now. So I would say this is something about what it is we're doing. And then how we do it? In his commentary on one of the koans, Uman said, do you go to the sun or does the sun come to you? What is it to stay here, to stay present and let whatever arises come here, arise here?

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What is that way of being and what supports it? What way of relating to your body, your breath, your feelings, your thought content? What way of standing or walking or sitting or lying down? And can that way, that way of engaging, be clean. Can it not simply get tangled up in some secondary agenda? Some secondary agenda of achieving this or not feeling like this, of staying safe, of insisting

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in some strange way that it's important to keep some personal intrigues alive in the midst of the request of practice you know as we watch ourselves Discover, experience, negotiate the difference between just this and putting it in the context of something else. Oh, there's only ten minutes left of the period. Oh, this is the last period before lunch and it's going to be a short one. Whatever it is. to say such thoughts and feelings don't arise.

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But how much authority are they given when they do arise? Can the vow, can the intention of shashin, of practice, this fierce and marvelous opportunity to get closer to engage more thoroughly what it is we came here to do. Can that vow, can that intention hold the intrigues of the mind? The blatant ones, the urge to fantasize. some recurring story from your past or future insisting on revealing itself, expressing itself.

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Some murky layered complex of thought and feeling seeming like it's coming out of your bones rather than your brain. Some ancient ache somewhere in your hips, your lower back, your shoulder blades. However, whatever, Can they be held in the context of vow? Can that vow ripen, deepen? Can it afford some spaciousness, some curiosity for this human life?

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Recently I was reading some poems written by Stanley Kunitz a couple of years before he died in 101. Marveling at what it is to be alive. I have made a tribe. out of my true affections. I would say we've all made a tribe out of the things we like to yearn for, resent, be frightened by, be inspired by. Our tribe that accompanies us as we wander from place to place. Now is the time to see that.

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You must see that content, to see the consequence of that content when it's aroused, engaged, energized. To discover the particulars of self, the nature of mind and consciousness, and the nature of all being. To see the self and to see through the self to bring to it a resilience to bring to it an earnestness a sincerity there's all these things arise something

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remembers to return to just this. Whether just this is the raging storm of a well-worn story layered through re-experiencing and repeated patterns. Whether just this is a moment of soft surrender to the inhale, discovering in its particularity something almost universal about the nature of opening up and becoming what is. Each inhale offering itself in that way.

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In each exhale, a release, a letting go. What is it to drop the story? What's the difference between dropping and suppressing? What's the difference between releasing and aversion? the turning of the heart and the mind and the intention that facilitates that breath after breath. Wu Men says, do you go to this side?

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Do you go to this story? Do you follow off somewhere else? Or does it come here? He doesn't say, is it stopped? Is it ceased? Never to begin again. So what is it that we hold true to when we take the Dharma seat of Zazen? So Merwin took a shot at it like this with his poem. In a recent interview he said, just don't call me a Buddhist. momentary creed.

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I believe in the ordinary day that is here at this moment and is me. I believe in the ordinary day that is here at this moment and is me. Seppo said, everything is the This is a marvelous practice in Sashin. Don't separate self and other. How can everything happen here? Make here enormous. Make here so vast, nothing can be outside of it. Everything is self.

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When the mind creates judgment about other, the self, in action. mind and emotion, delighted by the sun, frightened by the cold, intrigued by the rain, pleased by the moon, the self. And just the workings of an ordinary day. Ordinary mind is the way. I believe in the ordinary day that is here at this moment and is me. This is where I'm at.

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saying I have everything right. I'm not saying I know everything. I'm not even saying in believing that, I'm believing in something. Maybe I'm just saying there's an intention to be, not to be in some exotic state of being, transcendent. But some state of being that fully embraces what arises here. I don't see it going its own way and I never saw how it came.

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It extends beyond whatever I may think, whatever I may think I know and all that is real for me. It extends beyond whatever I think I may know and what is real for me. When we grasp it, in that grasping, it's not only reified, it's affirmed. The grasping, the accompanying, convincing thought and feeling stimulates conviction. still just the arising of the moment still just an offering to the exhale what is it to let it go with the exhale not a suppression not as a version not as rejection

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Just to be in accord with the impermanence of all things. That which arises, falls away. Just to be in accord with the conditioned nature of all things. When it's grasped and energized, it's reified. It changes from a story into reality. It changes from the flowering of emptiness to the solidity of what is. It confounds

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the fundamental vow of waking up. So with each exhale raising the Dharma banner, with each exhale renewing the vow of practice with each exhale turning the Dharma wheel the conditioned nature of all existence not as a bundle of thoughts but as a lived experience Because what is, is not simply what I think is.

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To let go and to let in the inhale. The abundant arising of existence. endlessly varied endlessly abundant confining the mind that says this is not enough I want I want I want more than this each inhale to allow this arising from the great ocean of conditioned existence in its unique flowering

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Our great teachers have said, when we chase after it, we never catch it. Staying here, it fills our eyes, it fills our ears, it fills our mind, it fills our heart. figure that out sometimes slowly slowly slowly we can realize it we can actualize it each inhale offering itself what is it how is it to allow what arises

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What is it? How is it? Just this is enough. What's the movement of the diaphragm? that engages in that way. What's the softening of the chest? What's the releasing of the area behind the nostrils? what is it that you came here to do what is the point of a human life each inhale

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Pause. Exhale. Marvelous or awful. Sacred or profane. Let it go with the exhale. The Dharma wheel turns. The Dharma wheel turns from the beginning. There has been neither surplus nor luck. Our vow becomes an activity. It becomes an involvement.

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commitment and in the midst of that beautiful vow the workings of our conditioned existence join the party wrote a very funny poem about the 10,000 idiots that live inside of us. He said the 10,000 idiots are not the problem. The problem is when they go on vacation and you think they're not coming back. What's the proposition of practice?

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To not just begrudgingly comply. Somehow holding something back waiting for it to be over. It's not that it's over, you're over. The way things look at the current moment, your existence will end before the universe. It might not happen that way, but That's how it looks at the moment. The day before he died, Lou Hartman said to me, watching right now, it seems like duality is an argument.

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something to gain, something to lose, something to strive for or struggle against. This marvelous gift of self-reflective consciousness that can appreciate the whole proposition. toy with words and ideas. How would I put it into words, this momentary creed? I believe in the ordinary day that's here at this moment and is me. I don't see it going its way and I never saw how it came. It extends beyond whatever I think I know in all that is real to me.

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It is present. There is no place I know outside today except for all that is unknown to me. The only presence that appears to stay, everything I call mine, is lent to me. Even the way I believe the day, for as long as it is here, and it is me. Everything I call mine is lent to me. Even the way I believe the day, for as long as it is here, and it is me. Of course the intrigues of your life, blatant and subtle, are going to speak loudly, assert their authority, and demand your attention.

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Of course they are. But even so, can we simply appreciate this wonderful gift of being able to hold the dual and the non-dual just as it is and all the activities of our mind and heart. Can our vow be as steady as our heartbeat can the workings of our lungs bring us close remind us the rising and falling

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teaching us breath by breath what presence is, what it is to allow this to arise, what it is to allow this to fall away. Can the enactment of this vow begin to shed light? conditioned nature of our own unique existence. Can we see it? Can we feel it? Can we be it? And can we do something like see through it? creating the space to hold it with compassion.

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As we stay here, as we stay close to just this, the urgencies of our psychological agendas and rise up, especially when they're unrequited. Can we hold that urgency tenderly? The compassion that allows the layers of suffering of a human life to unravel.

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How it's woven itself into intrigues. Our hopes and fears, our sense of self, our definitions of other, woven together. As the light of awareness reaches in, something unravels. Something's undone. Not by our thinking. Not by our determination. It's undone. because that which was determinedly holding it in place is no longer so determined.

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Nansen told Joshu, ordinary mind, full of trickery ordinary mind is not so ordinary somehow when we land in it fortuitously walk out of the zendo forget ourselves and just intrigued by the pearlescence of the raindrops. What could be simpler? But in the throes of our intrigues, so many trails leading off to nowhere, which one shall we take?

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so many lifelong issues waiting to be resolved understood brought to closure to draw close to here and now To let that closeness illuminate. To let the potency of here and now undo that which is determinedly being held in place there and then, before and after.

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Holding tenderly the accompanying trembling of our heart as it trembles with fear, resentment, sadness, confusion, doubt, yearning, would it be to let that go with the exhale? Not as aversion, not as suppression, not as rejection. How would that be? This is the study of the breath. This is the sutra of breathing out.

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Letting it arise. Just as it is. Not fearing the complexities of our own being. They are not the enemy. We are not broken. We are not deficient. You're not inadequate. What would it be to let it arise with the inhale, to be received like a gift? Can the breath entering the body teach us something about that? Can how the body responds in anticipation of the inhale teach us something?

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And then the bell rings. We dust ourselves off and stand up and do kinhing. Seeing what that world is. Letting that vow take a new shape, a new form. and says ordinary mind is the way but hidden in his words it's right in front of you how come it's so off and hard to see

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It's the emotions coursing through you. How come they're so darkened by intrigue? It's the physicality of your being. How come it's so often superseded with thinking? is this ordinary mind. So to return and to return to our vow, to presence in the moment.

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Let something of the original nature of what is shine through. How? Okay. How is that done? What posture should I sit in? Should I count my breaths? Should I pay attention to the inhale and exhale? Should I notice the sign to the creek? How should I practice with that recurring feeling or story?

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rousing vow, the whole world becomes khan. How to practice with this. Khan is refined, so it's not merely expression of our usual struggle with our life but an expression of that beautiful human capacity for self-reflection okay we're born we live we die we're conditioned we have patterns of thoughts and feeling have my own unique version hmm what is it to practice with that in the particular way it arises

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is the great con of our life. Whether we want to make up a poem about what our momentary belief is, or whether we want to spend our winters in a narrow valley in northern California. So these brief tocasands that we're about to launch into. As best you can. What is it you're working on? And what happens when you work on it? Maybe

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How do you work on it? Okay? As best you can. What more can you ask of yourself? And why ask anything less of yourself than your best? It's more fun that way, when you give it your best. 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,

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Visit sfzc.org and click Giving.

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