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. Last night, in her encouraging words, Rosalie was mentioning that the second day is often considered the worst day. But I want to reassure you that we're all fully capable of making any day the worst day. We have the versatility, the imagination. conjure up all sorts of goodies for ourselves.

[01:06]

Mark Twain said, there have been many tragedies in my life and some of them actually happened. In the realm of the Dharma, in the realm of practice, It's a curious proposition as to how we hold the limitations, the suffering, the confusions of the human condition. There's something not only therapeutic, but also instructive and liberating about having a humor, a sense of humor about what we can get up to.

[02:09]

And yet, as Nagarjuna said, it's all constructed, but the suffering is real. The suffering is real. how to hold it with tender compassion, and how to bring forth a spaciousness, a lightness, a resilience, and how, as Dogen Zenji puts it, in the wondrous art of practice to find the balance of these two in the midst of what arises.

[03:17]

A couple of months ago, in a talk, I quoted an article that I'd read by a psychologist. I don't know how he stumbled across this, but he was looked at what we think we're doing, okay, here's what I'm doing, and what influences or determining factors might be involved in it. And the example he gave was in Israel, a committee that decided whether or not people should get parole. And over the years, the average for parole of the people who came in front of them was close to a third, except for the case just before lunch. If you're one of those lucky people, the averages were closer to 60%.

[04:19]

it's a true example of deciding with your gut. Or some way in which, or maybe it was the smell of falafel and flatbread next door or pastrami sandwiches or whatever you get when you're on the parole board committee. how varied and multiple the influences that come upon us at any moment. As we bring forth what it takes, what it takes to bring forth

[05:41]

what it takes to let go of in response to the request of practice. In just the same way, there's this challenge between tender compassion for the real suffering you're going through, we're all going through in our own way, and something lighter. Something more spacious. Something that hears the notion, oh, and we're all capable of making any day the worst day. And we can all nod and go, boy, is that ever true. I can whip up a storm that buries the sun. How to hold them both.

[06:50]

How to hold the human condition skillfully. How to open up to a request that asks for everything we've got. You know, if we can get that far enough away from us, it's kind of exquisite. Oh, what a beautiful idea I see across the room. It sparkles so exquisitely. But when it's right up in your face saying, drop it. Get over it. you're grasping more thoroughly than you even know how you're grasping it.

[08:04]

Let something soften, loosen, open. Even if all you're capable of now is just a flicker of release on the exhale. Someone told me recently about experience they had surfing. They're an avid surfer. They've suffered most of their life. Suffered and surfed most of their life. All day they were looking forward to going surfing. Finally, they were able to cut loose, get off work early, and go down to the beach.

[09:11]

And then they noticed, in the midst of surfing, they started to think, when this is over, I'm going to do this or that, you know. Realizing when this is over, lingers. Even when you arrived where it was all day, you wished you would arrive. The wish for this to be over meets that too. The habit energies of our thought patterns, of our emotional patterns, seen and unseen, in the midst of this human condition to wake up.

[10:32]

And Dogen Zenji in his teaching says, it's not about figuring it out. It's not about figuring it out. That which figures it out is already separate from it. It's not about mastering the human condition. Bending it to your will. how dedicated no matter how sincere no matter how altruistic and lofty what is it what is it at the heart of our being that has us going here and going there rummaging through our memories

[11:44]

in an extraordinary fashion. Anticipation with such conviction that it's utterly infused with emotion. What is at the heart of it? What is it to wake what's at the heart of it. The methodology of Zen is to discover that this is a much bigger problem than you ever imagined. You might think, no, no, no. The state I got myself in yesterday afternoon was as big as it comes.

[12:50]

Nope, this is bigger. That was just a ripple of waves. This takes all of existence and turns it into turmoil. and its edifying quality, its saving grace, is that it starts to help us to see all the things that come into creation. Even though, as Nagarjuna says, the suffering is real. They are indeed constructs. And this is the territory we enter when we enter the third Dragon Gate.

[14:02]

Yes, I'm still on that storyline. The first Dragon Gate, the sincerity, the dedication to come forward, to enter, to initiate. your best effort on each moment the second dragon gate the willingness to experience whatever comes up yes yes yes As I've been saying incessantly recently, notice, notice, notice, notice.

[15:18]

And then the third Dragon Gate, just be what is. It could be simpler. Just be what is. It already is. And not only that, it includes all the thoughts and feelings and responses and reactions and hesitancies that we have in relationship to it. That's part of what is. So each time we sit down to do zazen, to be undone by zazen, the intentionality, the willingness,

[16:38]

giving over. Not only to be willing to be what is, but when what is comes forth, experience it. All this... I don't know, do Americans use the word palaver? Or is that simply a... Yes? Thank you, Chris. I wasn't sure. All this palaver. Who doesn't know what the word palaver means? Hey, Chris. rigmarole, embellishment that's maybe fuss about nothing.

[17:52]

All this palaver of gates and all that stuff. It's just the same basic instruction as mindfulness. Pause, notice, experience. Except now, as we ripen in the influence of Shashin, the pause becomes more so. The noticing, the having register, acknowledging, becomes more so. The experiencing becomes more so. I may dare say so, the wondrous art is to let this process become as steady and as frequent as our beating heart.

[19:07]

To become as steady and as frequent as the flow of our breath. Not that all the known and unknown forces that weigh upon us in our human condition are magically going to comply with our good intention. But in the midst of them, just the same way our heart, our lungs, and our stomach continue their business as we have all the thoughts and feelings and activity of the day to bring our practice into this kind of basic relationship with our being to pause to notice experience to enter and enter and enter

[20:29]

so thoroughly engaged that there is no inside and outside. Just this. And we take it from an idea, from an intention, We let the intention ripen into resolve. This marvelous capacity we have. Something in us. Okay, I'm going to do this. Something in us takes that, translates it into resolve, runs off, translates into action. read a scientific article a while back that said in some tests that have been done the action precedes the thought by about half a second.

[21:55]

Doing and then I'm going to do. Now is that strange or what? complexity of the human condition, the complexity of our interactive existence. Thoroughly understanding it is not necessary. Engaging. Sometimes this gate, you know, these three gates arise from an early teaching in Buddhism. Three gates of liberation. The aimless, the signless, and emptiness.

[23:06]

Each with its own kind of paradox. The aimless initiated... through sincere intention. The signless, acknowledging each particular arising, each particular sign. Emptiness, experiencing the energy of constructed existence. not separating from it, not putting in an insulating layer of thought, an insulating layer of, I define this. It's more like as Dogen's energy says, this defines me.

[24:15]

when the pastrami sandwich is nearby, I go for 60%. Apparently, it knows more about jurisprudence than I do. And just as Dogen Zenji says, We study the self to go beyond the self. In the process of pause, notice, experience, what arises is the full array of the self and the world according to me. Why? Because this

[25:26]

embarrassingly as it is, is how we're hardwired to be. Me is a very important proposition. Me is a matter of life and death. Me is a matter of figuring out and understanding what the heck is going on so that the chosen course can be decided in terms of what brings happiness and avoids suffering. So as we open up to experiencing what is, what do we get? We get a fuller version of me. And it comes forth in ways that it seems we understand, and it comes forth in ways that it seems we can't understand.

[26:39]

The wondrous art of practice going beyond the thinking, the judging, the concluding, the strategizing. How do we go beyond them? We experience them as they arise. The fundamentals, the basics, paying attention, sitting upright, willingness to experience. discovering the subtle details and yoga of sitting.

[27:48]

Subtle antidotes. When you notice you're getting over-involved in making the breath happen. Inclined towards letting the breath breathe the body. When there's a particular part of your body hurting, demanding that you move, before anything, open up to the experience of the pain. Can this transaction be something more than following your mind's dictate? Open up to the experience of the pain and then move as slowly as possible.

[28:53]

This slow moving helps you discover the intricacies of the adjustment. When the mind seems to be caught in a storyline, urgent, dramatic, compelling, Can you get in touch with the feeling underneath, the emotion? What's energizing it? What's fueling it? What is it that needs to be said again and again and again? Can it be open?

[30:09]

to completely in the moment of pause can there be as thorough a release as the breath the heart the mind bring forth. Can the world be allowed to reappear anew? When the mind has wandered off down some dusty corridor and suddenly you notice

[31:09]

Right there. Before some great rush back to the sacred grind of Zazen. Pause. Notice the body that that dusty corridor has created. How has your posture shifted, moved? has some part of the body become tighter? What's the mental disposition? And then, from that place of connection, slowly, gently rediscovering uprightness, rediscovering the breath, rediscovering the body, we settle in the Shashim, these teachings, these moments of connection, they become our support, they become our teachers.

[32:40]

There are teachers in the realm of experiential learning. the moments of experience be themselves. Be so full that their illustration of presence registers. This is the wondrous art. This is the delicate process of letting something register without turning it into a concept, of letting it stay an experience. Because as Dogen Senji says, fundamentally, the wondrous art is inconceivable.

[33:50]

This is the teaching of all the Buddhas. all the Buddha Tathagatas who transmit wondrous Dharma actualizing unsurpassable complete awakening have a wondrous art excellent and unconditioned receptive samadhi is its mark, receiving what's happening, opening, experiencing. However, wherever this affords itself to the moment. as I said, to bring it forth with the same simplicity as our beating heart.

[35:12]

The challenge is more for us to discover how organic, how simple noticing is. It's as simple as letting our heartbeat. It's as simple as letting our breath breathe our body. It's as simple as letting our eyes see, our ears hear. And what does it reveal?

[36:25]

It reveals the complexity, the intensity of our existential drive. Wonderful and mysterious. Receptive samadhi is its mark. Only Buddhas transmitted to Buddhas without veering off. Being present allows experience to transmit the Dharma.

[37:37]

how it happens. We don't figure it out. We don't resolve the complexities of the human condition or the planet or even a single other person. We experience the moment Receptive samadhi is its mark. Its mark means its hallmark, its defining feature. Only Buddhas transmit it to Buddhas without veering off. Sitting upright, practicing zazen, is the authentic gate to free yourself in the unconfined realm of this samadhi. Sitting upright, practicing Zazen, is the authentic gate to free yourself in the unconfined realm of this samadhi.

[39:03]

But rather than leave you with that bizarre note, I'm going to read a poem. Endure. Again, Naomi Shihab Nye's latest book, Transfer. A poem about a good friend of hers, Mahmoud Darwish, who died, as we all will, in 2008. Mahmoud. So spur inside his elegant suit, stepped across stony fields, bent to brush the petal of a flower. Didn't pick it. Closed his eyes, though, holding one hand with the other, carrying the presence of blossom back to the page. For those who would never walk a field, never been dined, he'd find a way to carry the cry of the lost goat and the cry of a people without stumbling.

[40:11]

Don't forget the streaks of tears mapping his soft cheeks. his large and somber glasses, the edgy poke of his thin shoulders, how he stood a bit to one side, hand over heart, his delicate hand on the stem of a glass, toasting the roads and the wandering winds. Mothers and fathers, enduring without justice, felt his dapper presence sustaining them, though they might have found it hard to name. The unchosen... beauty of struggle and love, mixing in fresh tonic any might drink. His brilliance spilled in every language, though Arabic owned him. He became a perfect country, moving through the world wherever he was. He was its ruler, teacher, and prophet.

[41:15]

And He, its infinite dusty workers pausing with shovels to stir beyond the ruin they could see to what they will always believe in. We enter... through this exacting request of experiencing what is. And the world arises, just as it is. And in its wondrous art, a beauty

[42:17]

Where did that come from? That which within knows, sees the beauty. That which within feels the compassion, feels the beauty. sees the nobility of the human spirit, remembers what it is to embrace the world, to appreciate and respect the lives and struggles of others. Out of this,

[43:19]

exacting request for experience, the bodhisattva vow is nothing more or less than just opening the hand and offering it to the world. Not as some great act of power or authority, just the obvious response. But here we are, in the third day of Shashin, ready to take on our tragedies, our great challenges, ready

[44:21]

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, please visit sfzc.org. and click giving. May we fully enjoy the Dharma.

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