second day of Sushin. It's a very interesting process to construct a reality and then let it undo the habit energies of our body, our emotions, and our thinking, you know, and of our behaviors. Most of us want that to happen and don't want it to happen. Invited in and resisted. So yesterday I mentioned Uman's coin. Medicine and disease cure each other. The wanting and the not wanting.

[01:30]

How they interact. What they most create. They can reveal each other. They can teach us something about the other. By contrast, we can notice what it's like when we're in the groove. When we're welcoming each part of the schedule. And what it's like when we're not. When we can't wait for the bell to ring. when we're counting the number of periods until the day ends. When it feels like our body is betraying us and hurting us in places we didn't even know existed. Or those sweet moments where the moment just seems to resonate in its aliveness.

[02:34]

And then a more subtle notion of the coin. Just a willingness to meet whatever comes up. A willingness to experience it. A willingness to turn towards, to open to each moment. To remember the literal meaning of mindfulness, of smriti. This practice is about experiencing. It's not about manufacturing a special experience, controlling the experience we're having. It's the careful examination of the human workings, looking at the alchemy of the human working and discovering how to not resist and grasp and avoid and how not to complicate and agitate the human experience.

[03:49]

How to address it and engage it and discover through that process some way of being alive that starts to open and open and open. You could say that each coin has a profundity to it that's only fully realized in awakening. But even so, we can still remember. We can still let it come back as a guide. Okay, just experience this pleasant, unpleasant, intense, insipid, clear, confused. Just experience this just as it is.

[04:55]

And then watch the ripples that habit energy creates around that simple request. do we get close enough, engaged enough for that to become an experienced investigation? What's going on? What's happening? Remembering to turn towards an experience and let that reveal. So it's more about The moment is teaching us when the habitual responses we have to the moment.

[05:57]

And part of our investigation is watching carefully what does it take to make that kind of shift. To become genuinely curious like the function and the workings of consciousness and the conditioned being that's usually summarized as me. At the moments of opening are teaching and the moments of struggling are teaching. How to. Remember that. How to come back to that. How to keep stimulating that innate curiosity. How to do that. Given what your experience is.

[07:07]

How to be discerning enough to see the subtle ways you're trying to make something happen. Oh, you're trying to prevent something from happening. How to start to explore that? I wrote a book called For Lovers of God Everywhere. I wanted to quote a couple of... It's a collection of poems. written mostly by Christian mystics. And I was thinking, you know, for a long time, the word God, I'd find somewhere between offensive and widely offensive. You know, kind of get to have a little bit of a reaction to the word.

[08:13]

Something like the word nigger, you know, it's like you just can't help but wince a little bit when you hear it, you know. So much is implicated in it for you that you don't agree with or don't like or have unpleasant associations with. That was sort of my response to the word God. And it went out to... childhood, religious experience and all sorts of interesting things. And then noticing that actually it isn't an operative word for me at all. It doesn't enter into my way of thinking or understanding existence or spirituality. that that kind of response was extra.

[09:22]

It was like holding on to something that was no longer relevant. This all came up for me. The person who wrote this asked me if I would write a little blurb for the back. Can I just enter the material with the beginner's mind? So sometimes entering the moment has changed It's kind of a complexity, history, you know, to watch your own prejudices, the relevance and influence of history.

[10:31]

And then sometimes it's very immediate and very similar. As I was walking towards the Buddha hall, the office windows were open and the thought arose. The windows should be closed. Something about awareness, the very nature of awareness, it brings us back to a place of balance. Okay, that's how it is. Okay, here's the arising response. It's intense and lingering. Oh, it's passing. It's just a momentary flicker. Medicine and disease cure each other.

[11:33]

Hakko and Zenji says, but don't get stuck on the idea. That's not the medicine. It's the practice of it. So as things arise for you in Sashim, more and more letting them speak rather than you speak. More and more receiving the arising. What is it to be available? What is that state of being? that receives the moment. What is it? To return to that receptivity. In early Buddhism, this is called or close to the process of shamatha.

[12:46]

Shamatha is pausing, noticing, engaging, allowing to be exactly what it is. Returning to the moment, returning to the willingness to experience, to pause, can be such that it becomes this deliberate process of returning, returning, returning. You know, there's a way in which when we become absorbed in thought and the emotional and psychological involvements of it, it pulls us into a state, often it pulls us down into a state that loses awareness of itself.

[14:02]

So the challenge is can we, when those moments are rising to the surface where we're aware, can that moment register? Can that moment be noted? Can that moment be a felt experience? Can it register as an experience in the moment? Can we be aware we're aware when we're aware? Can we notice the quality of consciousness that awareness is? Can both of those, can we experiencing the experience and awareness of the awareness? They help register, oh, this is awareness. This is being in the moment.

[15:06]

The moment says what is rather than being lost in the inner dialogue and rather than I'm saying what is. So to let Zazen become this deliberate, patient, noticing, Returning. This inquiry. This investigation. Experience the experience that's happening. And this works for everything. Even when your body is achy. Experience the experience. And start to notice... the additional contraction. Start to notice how the breath is influenced.

[16:11]

Start to notice, does it have a mental disposition? Is there a certain agitation, vexation? Can whatever arises be itself? Can we start to notice the more subtle ways we habituate on wanting to turn it towards what we want? Turn it away from what we don't want. So the body, the breath, Create the foundation. And then noticing when awareness arises.

[17:17]

What is it to give over to it? What is it to feel more, experience more fully the moment? And then what is it to carry that through our day? to start to be able to distinguish between being caught up in thought and having an active experience of here and now in terms of this space, this time, these experiences coming in through the sense doors, these signs, this sight. This is the yogic work of Zazda.

[18:22]

We explore it on the cushion and we carry it off the cushion. And whatever it brings to consciousness, as best we can, we just meet it. If it's intense rage, we just meet it. If it's spacious, the light In the exquisite nature of the moment, we just need it. Which brings me to the first poem. As kingfishers catch fire, dragonflies draw flame. As tumbled over rim and roundly welds, stones run like each tuck string. tells, each hung's bell's bow, strung finds tongue to fling out broad its name.

[19:27]

Let me try that again. I heard David White, who was, you know, he's half Irish and half Welsh, and Sounds like the Welch part of him was channeling this alliteration. Sense of the moment catching fire. We're present. It says in the sutras that when there's presence in the moment and the engagement becomes energized, there's like a spark of joy. There's just something in this that lights up. When I notice my mind think the window, the office window should be shut, it's like a moment of joy.

[20:34]

You know? Hmm. There's a little stinger to it, you know? A little... should be shut. But even that had its own kind of zest. There's a way in which we deeply appreciate dropping off body and mind and entering moment. And then, amazingly, there's a way in which it seems like we'll do anything but We'll try every other option first. And then we'll also return to those other options. To this notion of the moment catching fire. As kingfishers catch fire, dragonflies draw flame. As tumbled over rim and roundly wells, stones ring.

[21:39]

Like each tucked screen tells, each hung's bell's bull. Swallow finds tongue to fling out broad its name. So we study. We study the nature of consciousness. We study the nature of engaging the moment. What it arises when the spark is delight, when the spark is dismay. And we experience directly. As Dogen Zenji says,

[22:43]

the fundamental point. We experience directly and we see the conditioned nature of being alive. And we see how we can be utterly lost in our conditioned response or something can be sparked. Some And amazingly, that illumination brings us joy. That's the way we're wired. So we study liberation, experiencing experience. awareness of awareness.

[23:44]

We're studying the nature of consciousness. We're studying the workings of momentary concentration. And as we learn about it, then we explore with it. What is it that cause as you're walking up the stairs and allow be experienced to be experienced what is it to pause as you sit with a cup of tea melting into a soft chair what is it to pause and feel soft body to feel the weight and the warmth of the teacup to notice how it influences the breath To learn something about how to let the body and mind release and restore.

[24:54]

To learn something about medicine. What is it to pause in the middle of a difficult and painful experience and feel Feel its agitation. Feel how it ripples through the body, the breath. What it does to the state of mind. Feel the potency of that particular arising. Is it so utterly convincing that nothing else exists but that? Or is it just a rise as a momentary inclination which is generally brought back to balance by awareness. To become profoundly and genuinely curious about the workings of your human life

[26:13]

The word God. Look at that. A summation of my early childhood religious experience. Hmm. Hmm. A necessary part of my involvement in Buddhism. Hmm. Hmm. A lingering presence of a prejudice that just now in awareness feels redundant, irrelevant. To let it have its own spark by just being itself.

[27:20]

Not to jump to some magnificent conclusion. It's just itself. Just the conditioned workings of your being. Here's a short poem by... the Middle Ages, 13th century. Supposedly a teacher of Meister Eckhart, out of which a woman from a Flemish origin. So it reads almost like a meditation or an awareness instruction. Draw

[28:24]

nothing the circle that is the world's things come to the point come to the direct experiencing that goes beyond the ideas and opinions and judgments that you have draw into nothing the circle that is the world's things Then the naked circle can grow wide, enlarging, embracing all. Draw into nothing the circle that is the world's things. Then the naked circle can grow wide, enlarging, embracing all. As we explore direct experiencing, as we explore what it is to let the moment be just as it is, discovering that it has no limitation, it has no mind rate.

[30:00]

that it flows. It flows from a thought to a sign of a car, to the light in the room, to the sensation in your knee, to memory of your childhood, to the silence when the traffic mysteriously ceases. It is nothing other than the constant activity of ever-changing league. It is the medicine.

[31:09]

for the discomfort, the disease of constantly struggling, trying to make something be what we want it to be. And as we explore this activity, part of its nature is that It illuminates the way we hold back. If you really want to see how out of control your mind is, try to hold it exactly to each breath. Following it the whole way through the inhale, the pause, the whole way through the exhale, the pause. That's when we really see that awareness, attention, jumps around.

[32:12]

That's when we really see, sometimes we dip into a state of being, losing this time and place. And then eventually we re-emerge. In that moment of re-emerging, to pause and to notice and to experience. experience the body sense the disposition of mind to remember to be aware to remember each experience is the grind is the substance of awareness Not some special experience that's a grind of awareness, each one.

[33:17]

This very mind is Buddha. This very state of consciousness. This very emotion. This very fantasy. This very memory. And as we start to grow closer, we can let this start to rediscover posture. More and more to discover how we sit through careful attention to body. As you're settling, it's a sheet. It has an influence. To keep discovering what is it to let the body lengthen. What is it to let the body widen? What is it to let the body and the breath settle?

[34:23]

Not as an idea, but as a felt experience. There's always more to learn from these questions. There's always the remembering. To discover What an extraordinary ally and foundation for awareness, body and breath are. To discover that when the breath breathes the body, it teaches something of letting the moment just be what it is with its own natural energy. As we experience experience, we're discovering how to shift from thinking about it to letting the experience teach us. And as the unique characteristics of our own conditioned nature arise, to discover

[35:41]

and explore in a practical way, what is the medicine for this mental, emotional condition? What is the medicine for this agitation, for this yearning, for this confusion? right in the midst of intimate involvement. That's where we discover the most significant skillfulness for our practice. That's where we discover the subtle teachings of body and breath. That's where we discover The subtle nature of compassion that offers a kindliness to our own clinging, that offers a patience, that offers a benevolence.

[36:56]

A conditioned nature is not the enemy. A conditioned nature gives rise to the medicine, when it's engaged intimately with awareness? How can diligence, attention, be an act of kindness and not have a tinge of self-criticism? diligence and attentiveness be an opening to joy and not just some restriction or limitation to feeling fully who we are. Drawing

[38:14]

into a closer, more detailed relationship. And exploring it throughout the day. This is the third factor of awakening. The first one is mindfulness, the second one investigation, and the third one This virya, which covers everything from constancy to energy, including diligence. How do we coach ourselves to just diligently come back, come back, come back? How do we create within our own workings that kind of involvement?

[39:15]

How do we carefully discern the difference between having it be driven by some goal, some self-criticism? How can we A remembrance that fundamentally, intrinsically, practice is about suffering less. Let me see if I can do or read any more of this poem. Each mortal thing does one thing and the same. Like being indoors, each one dwells, selves, goes itself, myself, it speaks and spells. Crying, what I do is me. For that I came. To remind ourselves in the way that we remind ourselves.

[40:47]

To inspire and encourage ourselves in the way that we inspire and encourage ourselves. To remind ourselves that holding our difficulties with kindness and benevolence It's a skillful response. To pay careful attention to notice a contracting and agitation. And realizing it's asking for medicine. That way of responding will be like a flame to a moth.

[41:51]

It will draw our intention. When we discover that the way we're relating to ourselves is letting something find its own ease, is letting something find its own stability and balance. When we do that, we start to notice what's redundant. Things we've historically been holding on to that are no longer useful. Directly, sometimes they're just no longer relevant. And letting them go be like a sigh, like a relief. This is no longer necessary to contract in this way.

[42:53]

Can we start to discover that? Can we start to discover the workings of consciousness? Can we become genuinely curious? Please, you know, coach yourself from your own intimate experience. And bring this process to Dokusan and practice discussion. Here's what's arising. Here's how I'm practicing with it. And here's what happens when I practice with it. This is investigation.

[44:09]

This is actualizing the dialogue. This is revealing the fundamental point. Thank you.

[44:21]

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