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. Welcome to the mid, middle of the summer, one day sitting. And I know some of you have come from quite a ways away to make this a priority in your lives. And in this room there are people who have never done a one-day sitting before and people who have done countless one-day sittings. So please realize that. Help each other with the forms of the... the forms of the one-day sitting, and be an example of the forms to others.

[01:06]

Thursday night we had a dance performance here of South Indian dance, Bharatanatyam dance, and this dance is a religious offering, a religious dance, and was done without audiences initially, was done just with the Hindu deity. It's a women's lineage of dance. And the performance was done here in the dining room. And Annalisa, who did the dance, performed all these mudra, these hand postures, mudra, which told the story and also emphasize certain parts of the story and also the teaching. So the word mudra we usually think of as shapes or

[02:25]

postures that we make with our hands. But in a broader sense, I think we could say that mudra, and this is another maybe wider definition or deeper definition of mudra, mudra is the shape, making a shape, or the shape we make with our hands or our body, either in yogic postures or our body throughout the day, throughout the 24 hours, the shape we make with our hands or our body or our minds. And this shape, these particular shapes or mudras, invoke and invite and express particular energies. Invoke particular energies and invite and also express in the body.

[03:32]

So our Buddhist figures, practice figures, have hand postures which are expressing particular energies. We have the offering of jizo, the left hand extended with the jewel, the mani jewel. of bodhicitta. We have Tara with, you know, there's a mudra that's fearlessness and offering at the same time. Fearlessness, these mudras or these shapes are very, very ancient and probably universal in some ways to show, don't be afraid, I have no weapon. Please, I'm a friend, right? And also offering. So fearlessness and offering or giving.

[04:34]

These kinds of mudras. The Buddha has touching the earth mudra, grounding himself in the face of or in meeting the various energies that want to throw him off his seat. He touches the earth that's on this altar, and Manjushri is carrying the lotus staff, and I can't see what the other hand is doing. Anyway, these shapes are invoking energies in us. These are practice figures for us to invoke in us and resonate with our own inner energy. energy for wisdom and compassion and offering and turning the wheel of the Dharma and sealing. The other meaning of mudra is a seal.

[05:35]

Sealing. The way a seal functions is on a... or on a piece of art. This is authentic. This was made by this person. I have applied my seal. So these mudra also are sealing particular energies. So in thinking about this, this came up also at Tassajara leading a Yoga Zen workshop where the yoga teacher, Patricia Sullivan, was talking about the asanas, the different asanas as mudra, as shapes that we put our body in to invite and invoke and express particular energies. And in turning that and reflecting on that, I saw how much broader it is than just a yoga class or...

[06:39]

that this needs to enter this kind of practice, making ourselves into a shape or expressing our true shape of wisdom and compassion, and not just hands or body, but it has to be body-mind, making our life into mudra that expresses particular... energies, mostly of wisdom and compassion, how to make an entire life one great mudra, right? Maha mudra, one great seal. So I wanted to speak about our zazang posture as a kind of mudra of body-mind, and then talk about four practices for entering the way that have been offered by Bodhidharma, one of our ancestors, who's actually another figure on the altar, wrapped in his cape.

[07:54]

He probably just got up from sitting in his cave. That's the small figure facing the altar to the left, Bodhidharma, who is famous for sitting facing the wall. for nine years. So this is what I want to offer today. So some people I found today had not yet received sazan instruction and were enthusiastic about sitting, one day sitting, and signed up. So there's many, many posture points creating this mudra of the body that people have received in Zazen instruction, but also may, and we not only receive it in Zazen instruction, but we chant the universal admonitions for Zazen practice.

[08:55]

This is chanted weekly. Maybe we can also do it at noon today, where various posture suggestions, points are are offered and mentioned, and perhaps we forget them or think that's not so important. So I wanted to just bring up a few of these to help us create this mudra, this body-mind mudra that invokes, expresses, and invites what? Invites awakened life. So one of the... is after you've taken your seat and crossed your legs that you take a breath, inhale and exhale. It just says it very lightly, inhale and exhale. Usually this is an inhale and exhale through the mouth as a kind of a cleansing breath to let all the air out.

[10:05]

And this is suggested before every period of zazen. So I'd like to suggest that everyone, before we begin breathing quietly or inaudibly through the nose, to take this cleansing breath and let all the air out. And then let the inhale come in of itself and begin our breathing, our quiet breathing. Another kind of small detail that's just mentioned very lightly is to place the tongue behind the upper teeth with teeth and lips shut. Many, many people talk with me about difficulties in zazen with lots and lots of discursive thinking, going over the past, thinking about the future,

[11:08]

going through arguments, what they should have said and didn't say, and lots of activity. And this, in terms of the physicality of the Zazen posture, the tongue behind the upper teeth forms a kind of, another kind of, I think in yoga practice, they call it a lock, or a kind of seal with the the tongue behind the upper teeth placed there, and the ears in line with shoulders, and the nose in line with navel, this turns the head, and this part of the head, the topper most part, not this part, but this part, this forms a kind of quieted body-mind shape. This is a mudra that will... It's already hard enough to bring ourselves to the present, let go of discursive thinking, come back to our breath, let go of thought.

[12:18]

But if we're not helping ourselves by not taking the mudra, the particular shape that is conducive for this practice, we may be working in a kind of counter- counterway with the energies, with our energies. So our holding our body in a certain way, our chin up, or having our jaw slack, different things may be habits of body, patterns that we have. And what I'd like for us to do today is really notice these very small details in... in service of creating this mudra of awakened life. So our Zazen practice is not, as it says in Phukhan Zazengi, not learning meditation.

[13:24]

This isn't about all the... Our focus is not all the techniques. It's not about techniques. But it is the support to sit with non-dual non-discriminate, discriminating mind, and not doing anything, presence. How do we help ourselves to express this, to celebrate this reality of our life? So notice, and you can also notice, what it's like to have the tongue behind the upper front teeth, what you notice energetically in the body, in the body-mind, you can experiment. And I invite you to take this particular mudra body posture, body-mind posture, over and over and over throughout the day. Another point I wanted to mention is this whole upper body,

[14:35]

to be able to open our hearts to our own life and to the lives of others and to the lives of the great earth, we have to take the shape of opening. To take the shape of closing down will not serve us or others. And this shape of opening, it's not... forcing our body open, but it's a relaxed shoulders. And this is something that came out of the yoga class that I found extremely helpful. It's almost a visualization, which is to turn the collarbones back, up and back. Now you might think, I can't turn my collarbones. My collarbones aren't movable or something. They just sit there. almost as a visualization or bringing your energy to this area here, sternum and collarbones, and imagine the collarbones.

[15:49]

Imagine them turning back. It's in the subtle realm, but I found it very helpful in opening this area here and relaxing the shoulders. The head, the way I mentioned, the chin dropped, turning the color bones back, letting the shoulder blades relax and go down the back. This is all can help in this opening and relaxing this whole upper body and the whole body, the whole body and back, back, front, up, down. making of our life this kind of mudra.

[16:55]

Not to self-serve, not just to serve our own relaxation or something. This is to be able to carry out our vows. And the vow is to help and live for and benefit others to benefit all beings, all sentient beings. And we may have this vow, and yet over and over find ourselves coming up against our old patterns of speech, our old patterns of action, our old patterns of thinking about others and ourself. So taking this mudra, this shape of opening to whatever is happening, relaxing and resting. This day, this day of one day sitting is a time to live out our vow.

[18:06]

How do we want to live? What are the priorities in our life? I think so many of us, I think that all of us, I think because you're here, I can say this, because you've chosen to be here, I think the way that we want to turn our life is not based on grasping and materialistic activity and acquisition. And this is not what turns our hearts in most desire. and yet we might find ourselves falling into these patterns. So here we have a one-day sitting where the whole shape of the day, the mudra of the day, is we're not buying anything, consuming our food, or on the internet, or consuming entertainment, or music, or anything, or conversation.

[19:09]

We're just resting, restoring, balancing, rebalancing our life again without doing anything. So taking this posture as the simplest and really the almost the most simple and clear way of expressing that, that vow that we have, is taking this posture, resting on our cushion, not doing anything, just being this vow. And the shape that we put ourselves in, the shape that we take, will help us to realize that so that we can take any shape and have it be mudra throughout the day. Cross-legged sitting, we can't, you know, we have other things we have to do like hoe and cook and...

[20:13]

take care of children and old people and sick. So we can't sit cross-legged all day long. But to have every shape that our body takes, 24 hours a day, walking, standing, sitting, or lying down, be an expression of our vow. So this day we can become intimate with our tendencies, our patterns, our tendencies to be distracted, to want distraction, to not want to stay put doing nothing, to want to do something, anything, let me out of here. This is a chance, a one-day sitting is a chance to rededicate ourselves, re-consecrate ourselves to this way of life and a practice place. a monastery or a semi-monastic, a monastery or a practice place can be for the entire world, for the culture, the society, for our families.

[21:25]

Living in a place with, even for a day, with people who are trying to practice this way and live this way, can make a change in our life. the monasteries, Christian and Buddhist and other places that have been set aside for practicing in this way, practicing getting to know ourselves intimately, our whole selves, our difficulties and afflictions or kleshas and our... our easier, strong suits, you know, to get to know all of ourselves. And it's hard to do that by ourselves. It's hard to do that. That's why sangha or community is one of the jewels. It's very hard to do this on our own because we will, our tendency, me included, is to go with our preferences, go with our patterns, go with our tendencies and our habits.

[22:39]

left to our own devices, we will find ourselves reverting to very strong imprints, very strong karmic patterns. So to have a place where it's not based on your preference, our preferences of schedule, of work, of who we live with, who we spend time with, who's giving the Dharma talk, it's not based on our preference. And then we get to see all the problems, all the judgments, all the criticism, all the blame, all the cliches, the envy, the jealousy, the grasping, the pushing. But left to our own devices, we would skirt that as best we can. Not that we can, but... And then we're thrown around by the eight winds, you know, the eight winds of pleasure and pain, going towards pleasure, running from pain, profit and loss, what's good for me, what's not good for me, being pushed around by that.

[23:52]

Praise and blame. These are the eight winds in the last. Good reputation, bad reputation. trying to finesse and make things happen and run away from the others. And what happens is we're just thrown around and we're not at rest and we're not able to take a shape that celebrates and expresses the energies of wisdom and compassion. We're too busy running and blaming and pushing and pulling. So the dynamic life of community is not just a practice place, because not everyone can live in a practice place, but to have a small group practice place or the practice place of a family or a workplace. You can call these practice places and communities to open and practice with what comes forth, the difficulties, and study over and over again what's going on with us.

[24:58]

with our, are we in balance? Are we at rest and relaxed with these difficulties? Even with our upset over, or our, I shouldn't say upset, with our strong, the strong sensations and strong effects of injustice and degradation in the environment and how can we meet these parts of our life which it's, you know, from my sense of things, it's getting worse. Things are getting worse and the stakes are getting higher with the climate emergency and the differences in rich and poor.

[26:02]

And this is our world. Are we ready? How will we be a source of peace in this world? This isn't to cut away our strong... the strong feelings we have around these issues. I'm not saying cut away strong feelings. I'm saying how do we act and be there for people, be there for everyone who's around us in a way that's going to be helpful and beneficial. So we can start small, you know, with our neighbors and the community we live with. and the ideas that we disagree with.

[27:03]

Unless we are able to do that, we will be thrown around. So bodhidharma, there's few things that can be for sure attributed to bodhidharma, but there's one particular teaching that where he says there's two ways to enter the path of practice. One is non-dual, non-discriminating, non-action sitting, and just enter. Shikintasa, just sit and enter. And he calls that entering by principle, or the translation is enter by principle. And the other is to enter through practice. And in that way, in these two paths, enter through practice has four parts.

[28:08]

The first part is enduring. This is the practice. To endure, to be able to be steady and in balance and stay with it with our... or the consequences of our actions, our voluntary actions, to be able to meet that. We often want to blame somebody else. But in terms of the afflictions or the kleshas, these are mental afflictions, the external world will have pleasant, unpleasant praise and blame. good reputation. We'll have all these different things. How we practice with it is up to us. And we can meet with very, very difficult circumstances, and we find that in a one-day sitting or a session or other situations of intimacy with others.

[29:17]

We meet difficulties. And that does not mean that we need to be in fighting mode or blaming or why me, self-pity. Enduring the consequences of our actions means the consequences of how we think about things, too, and accept and work with what's coming up in us, what kind of thinking we're doing about others, about ourselves. Accept this, rather than blaming some external or somebody else. Or feel that we don't deserve it. The fact that I feel this way, I shouldn't feel this way. This is all not being upright, steady,

[30:22]

with consequences of our actions. The second part of this path of practice from Bodhidharma is to accord with conditions. To me, they're very similar, but the first is accepting or enduring the consequences of our actions. not make excuses. The second is according with conditions. How do we accord completely with that which is arising, like codependently arisen life? And to accord with conditions is when we have a mudra of, a body-mind mudra of stability and uprightness, we're able and balance we're able to accord and to move in ways that responds accurately to what's happening.

[31:30]

Often to suffering. All the forms of suffering. There's some forms of suffering we respond to beautifully. Other forms of suffering we are unable to accept. So according with conditions is to be able to take the form That's appropriate. The third of the practices, so we have enduring or accepting our karma or the consequences of our actions, being in accord, according with conditions, and the third is not seeking anything. not seeking anything. Now, this might feel like it goes against way-seeking mind. I think this seeking mudra, this seeking shape of grasping or looking for something to fill up some feeling of lack or not enough or yearning or...

[32:46]

And unless we're very intimate with this and studying this, we will act by trying to grab and seek for something to fill that. To be able to, I guess, I would say also accord with conditions. I think all four of these are, you know, mutually shine light on each other. So not seeking anything is to be willing to be who we are with all of our difficulties, accepting, accepting, accepting, not grasping after something else, something someday, some place, somewhere, some other practice place, some other people to practice with. some other teaching, some other food, some other anything.

[33:52]

This to practice non-seeking is peace, actually, is joy. The Buddha says non-seeking is joy. And in terms of way-seeking mind, to me, that's not the kind of seeking I'm talking about. Way-seeking mind is studying seeking. intimately and thoroughly. And to do that with others is hard and will form us into a shape that will be fearless and a gift to the world. Because we've met it. We've met our own fears. So not seeking anything. How can we practice not seeking on the cushion today, doing our work assignments, walking through Green Gulch, having our meals, not seeking anything else, allowing what it is to be intimate with whatever it is, including our states of mind that are coming and going and coming and going.

[35:11]

Be intimate with that. And the last of the four is very simply practicing Dharma, practicing Dharma. And in this case, the Dharma is the teaching of the interconnectedness of all things, or to speak about it in another way, but the same truth, the fact that there is no substantial self or object of consciousness, that there's nothing that's a substantial permanent thing. Each thing is conditioned by all the other things and is therefore interconnected and dependent, interdependent. So practicing this teaching of the myriad things have no substantial...

[36:17]

solidness that we could grasp. Part of the reason that teaching is to not seek is that it's impossible to actually seek and grasp something. So the teaching isn't like a disciplined scolding thing, like stop seeking, it's this is the way reality is, this is our life, and to accord with conditions, accord with that reality, practice non-seeking and you'll see. So these teachings are for us, I really want to make that clear, they're not some kind of disciplinary, it's helping us to take the form of our true self, the mudra, the maha mudra of interconnectedness. not forcing us into some box where, you know, it's supporting us to do the work we need to do by helping us.

[37:31]

So our life is changing and evolving and growing and... ripening each moment. And the Sangha jewel will help us with that enormously. A friend of mine who's a priest who went to a group where there was no Sangha, there was Buddha, there was a teacher, and there was a lot of texts and self-study, but there was no Sangha life. And the lopsidedness of that situation where... It was hard to practice these teachings. They are most thoroughly practiced with others, only a Buddha and a Buddha. So this way of practicing, which has been passed down over the millennia, helps us

[38:39]

to accord with our deepest vows and to do our work, which is the work of a bodhisattva or our compassionate work. So our practice, our work is our practice. Our work is to serve. This is compassionate work. So I just wanted to add... In this yoga retreat, often in a yoga posture, in an asana or a mudra of the body, you're looking for, not all the postures are working with this, but balance, balance in your life.

[39:46]

And balance, you know, even walking... As you may know, if you try to walk with your eyes closed or stand up with your eyes closed, to balance out of these two little feet relative to the size of the body, it's this narrow spot with two feet that we're trying to balance, which balances a steady state of uprightness. So finding our balance, coming back to our balance, a balanced life, this is the task of an activist, of a practitioner, of a practitioner activist, to find balance over and over, come back into balance. And a one-day sitting can help us with this.

[40:48]

This is how we want to live our life and want to face our life. And it's not perfect, you know, the practice place or the monastery and the people are far from perfect. And after the, you know, the initial feeling like to find a practice place. And people who want to practice with us, the initial kind of grace, I remember thinking, I had found amazing grace. I had never, not being from a Christian background, I didn't even know what that meant, but I felt it. This was amazing grace to find a practice center with people who wanted to practice in this way. And there's like-minded people, but everybody isn't of the same mind. There is a great variety, and people are working with their consequences of their actions in lots of different ways.

[41:54]

This is both the beauty and the difficulty and the perfect imperfection of practicing with beings. Trungpa Rinpoche says about monasteries that they are places of power. Monasteries or practice places are places of power. And when asked what the source of that power was, he said it's the group or the sangha dynamics and the sangha working together and practicing together. That's the power. And this can be... a beacon for the whole world, for the universe, for the society, like a light. If anybody can do it, if anybody can live together in peace, this is the test, you know.

[42:59]

Can we live together in peace for a day? This is our task. So with the agreements and the commitment of the one-day sitting, please help each other and stay with it. Even when the going gets rough, to come back and find your balance, find your budra, take this shape over and over throughout the day, the particular shapes of your body that invite and invoke energies, whether the shape is this, What energy does this invoke? This is a universal shape. All peoples put hands together. What does this invoke in you? The bow, the full bow, head down on the ground.

[44:01]

What shape is this? What happens when we surrender and throw ourselves into the moment? In the Jewish tradition, the There's bowing in a certain prayer, there's certain bows, and the regular congregation is supposed to do four, the rabbi is supposed to do like 36, and then the person who's the head of the village or something is supposed to stay in a bowed position the whole entire time, get that head down to the ground. So each of us... What kind of energy do we want to invite and express and call on, invoke, all throughout the day? I would like to leave the silence as the silence and not to ask for questions.

[45:16]

for each of you and me to just settle with what I've been bringing up. Thank you very much. Thank you for listening to this podcast offered by the San Francisco Zen Center. Our programs are made possible by the donations we receive. Please help us to continue to realize and actualize the practice of giving by offering your financial support. For more information, visit sfzc.org and click giving. May we fully enjoy the Dharma.

[45:55]

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