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. Sarah. Okay. So I titled this talk The Impossible Mission of Meditation. Mission Impossible. Those who are old enough to know what that is. Okay, I do realize there's a gap here. So, but anyway. I thought to talk a little bit about it in a different way, not necessarily how to do it, but just how to experience it and maybe hold it in one's life. And hopefully give you enough time to, or a way to be patient with yourself in the process. So I want to start it out because I meet a lot of people in the world.

[01:06]

And the first thing they tell me when they find out I have practiced Buddhism or meditation, they'll go, you know, I really can't sit still at all. You know, that's the first thing they say. But it sounds interesting. It sounds like something I'd like to do. It sounds like something I need to do. But I really, I can't do it. This is something that I have found myself, I have tried many times to sit still and, you know, be quiet. And then I get really bored or, you know, I forget to do it or, you know, these kinds of things. And so eventually, you know, they say, well, maybe I should come sit with you. and they'll work their way to something that I'm doing in the world, an event, a retreat, or come to the center. And as soon as they get there, maybe about two or three or four or five ways down the way of sitting sessions, they say, I really can't sit still. This is really something I can't do.

[02:08]

I can't do this practice, so goodbye. It's not helping. I'm actually feeling more suffering than I have ever felt before. So, of course, there's a lot of ways to ease that discombobulation at the first time. But I want to say that I remember learning something, and maybe if you could do that on your own, remember learning something that you didn't know how to do. And maybe it was piano, or learning how to play a drum, or tai chi, or qigong, or any of these kinds of practices. Maybe you didn't know yoga. You didn't know how to do it when you started. And so, but you went in, and you tried to stand on your head, but you couldn't. You got to the piano lesson, and you're like, okay, this is going to be beautiful. I really love the piano.

[03:09]

And it was ding, ding. ding, [...] ding. You know, it was like, okay, this might take a little long to get to the real reason why I came to take piano. And I remember that myself, because I did take piano lessons, and I ended up getting expelled, because I got very bored with it and ended up having fights with the teacher's son. You know, he was always bugging me while I was trying to play the notes. So, you know, I never got to. It's an instrument I really love. It's an instrument I love. So in remembering, you know, the beginning of our path, and if there's something that you began and you held on to it, you know, try to remember that and what it took, the tenacity, the compassion needed. to fail at it in your mind, thinking you're failing at it, or even feeling you're successful and then find out from your teacher maybe it's not so good later.

[04:19]

It's just all in your mind. So some of these things, remembering that experience, I think will help that feeling of the mission impossible around meditation. And the feeling of having to get to the end of it, you know, trying to get some place with it before you even began to be with it and to feel it and to experience and become familiar with it. And so this tendency to want to, you know, be the expert right away can get in the way. of the practice of meditation, and we call it Zazen here. Zazen, seated meditation. So some of the reasons why we might come, of course, we want to meditate, we want to sit still, is to ease our suffering.

[05:22]

We really want to ease the suffering. We want to stop struggling in our lives, and we want to do the right thing, you know. with ourselves and with others. We want to be in harmony. We want peace. We want to be in oneness. And we want to be in the awareness of all things. And so we come to the practice hoping to get these things within a week. Maybe within the day, if possible. If we could come and get it in the day. If I walk into Zen Center and today I could instantly feel And you might. You might. Some people might have that moment. That moment. And some people might not. And then you have to sustain it. So if you have that moment, you begin to think, well, I need all of these conditions in place so I can have that moment again. You know, so we keep working at that moment. And suddenly, you know, zazen, the seated meditation, starts to have a lot of conditions in order for you to make it.

[06:31]

Make sure I have this on today. this cushion, this seat, this, this, this, and that, and I know I'm going to reach nirvana. Yeah, yeah. So, our aspirations for harmony and peace and oneness and not to suffer are great aspirations. And also, it cannot be learned. It really cannot be learned. And when I say that, I'm trying to detach you from your mind because that's where we think learning is. You know, because I want to learn it. I want to look over here. Oh, that's it. I'm going to look over here. Okay, that's it. Or I'm going to read a book. You know, when I read the book, the book will tell me how to do it. I had a student come to me wanting to take the precepts. And I said, yes, would you like to? And she says, well, if you give me a couple of books and I'll read up on it and then I'll decide to take the precepts.

[07:33]

vows for one's life. I understood her completely. I must know what I'm getting into before I get into it. So meditation, it seems rather simple. You know, just quiet. You know, silence. Breathing, if I can do that. It seems rather simple. But yet there are centers and temples all over the world and teachers teaching the simple thing that we do every day, which is breathe. So there must be something a little bit more to it, something that you can't find in a book, something that you might can't learn from just watching someone else. And so now this is really going to feel impossible when I tell you some of this. So in seated meditation, which I feel has been taught from many traditions, but ancient sages from countries all over the world encouraged and instructed their disciples to pursue stillness.

[08:36]

And through stillness, arrived to a meditative state of awareness. Zen master Hongji Zenju said, one can only empty and open out body and mind as expansive as the great emptiness of space. One can only empty and open out body and mind as expansive as the great emptiness of space. Now it really feels impossible. Like, what does that mean? You know, and I really just came in here to not suffer. I really don't understand this dropping a mind and body. I really don't know what is expected of me. when I come into a center or I come before a teacher, a meditation teacher or a Dharma teacher. But it seems like it must be something important, something that involves a little more than just being quiet.

[09:40]

And I think that that's why some of us come into the temple to discover and to find out what that is. And so we might enter the temple and... think that the thing we're supposed to discover is outside of ourselves. It's outside. And that's fine. That's not a bad or right, wrong. It doesn't matter. Whatever the motivation is, you're here. And so you're coming and you're looking and you're new. So you're just like a baby. And so you get to be a baby. You get to slow down. You get to look around and listen. You don't know the language. Every time someone says Zazen, you go... You know, if you've never heard of it, our Hong Xi, Zen Zhu, well, whatever. You know, I didn't care about him. I'm suffering, you know, a little bit too much to understand that right now. And that's fine. That's fine. And this is what the practice is requiring of you. It's requiring you to stop and just be the young one. To be unborn.

[10:42]

To be without language. without knowledge. Now, you might have some already in your head because you read a lot of books. We're very scholarly in our country, so here's a book about it. Read it. And then we read it. I want to say another quote from Hong Xi that says, articulated silent illumination, which is a form of non-dual objectlessness, meditation, in which the essence of Buddhist teachings is illuminated. So now he's even saying there's no objects to really look at. You're just kind of being there. There's no you and me, like, well, I don't know about that. I don't know about, there's no you and me. And they're trying to say there isn't. Is there a trick here? What's the mystery here? What are we trying to do? Why are we... pretending there's no you and me. You know, why am I to drop body and mind when my body's so fully here and so is my mind?

[11:43]

And so these are the mysteries of this practice and why just sitting silent and being quiet is just the beginning. Even if one becomes calm, even in the sitting, that's just the beginning, preparing you to come to meet yourself. in the unfolding of the silence to meet your life, to meet the lives that impact you, you know, so that you can see. My teacher, Zenke Blanche Hartman, who's now deceased, often said, you know, there are a lot of teachings from Buddha. And she said the main point is all he wanted us to do is see. So it could just have been one book instead of 30,000. just to see. And what are we seeing? You know, we're seeing ourselves unfolding and sitting still enough to allow that self to come forward or that being, that suchness is a word sometimes that is used, that essence is sometimes a word that is used.

[12:51]

So this is important in all spiritual paths, that one slows down enough to see and to discover. and not know. So that's the baby part. So how many of you came in here knowing? You don't have to raise your hand. It's not a good thing to do in a beginner's mind temple. And then how many people might leave still knowing the same thing they came in with? They haven't really, something hasn't come forth for them. You know, the discovery. hasn't happened quite yet. So you've heard that saying, leave your luggage at the door and then come in, and then you can pick your luggage up when you go out. Well, these things are from the psychology point of view. So we ask you to bring it all, and then when you bring it all of your life into the space of stillness, then there's the unfolding and the discovery

[13:59]

And instead of trying to grab at being calm, or grab at peace, or grab at harmony, or grab at non-suffering, you're just allowing yourself in a stillness to allow these things to meet you. Let them meet you. And this is why in many spiritual paths they have meditation. It's not a monopoly owned by meditation. Buddhist. So in Zen, we often say shikantaza, just sitting, shikantaza. You might hear that more. I have spoken probably a word you would hear in Japan, maybe, or in a monastery in Japan. Tibetan Buddhists, when they sit, they have two practices that I know of or heard of. Maha mudra, or zogshin, And that, too, is similar to meditation practice.

[15:01]

I don't know. There may be some here who understand the Judaic tradition. I don't know that one tradition, but there's definitely meditation in the Kabbalah teachings. The Prophet Muhammad meditated consistently and, in fact, was in a state of meditation, they say, when he first received the revolution of the Koran. And so they have several different types of meditations within the Islamic tradition. In the African traditions, spiritual traditions, there's Yemenya, sometimes it's considered, and Orisha, the Orisha of the ocean, is considered the Orisha of meditation, sometimes in the Ifa tradition. So I'm gonna wait till the siren goes by. So I wanted to talk a little bit about, you know, meditation in terms of what's going on today in the world a little bit.

[16:29]

And what's going on maybe inside yourself and the suffering that comes up. And so in meditation and why meditation. So when we come in and we're suffering, usually what's happening at the time is we feel isolated a lot or we feel disconnected Or we don't feel we belong. We don't feel a part of the world. We don't feel maybe a part of the person sitting next to us or the person walking by. You know, there's a way in which when we pull ourselves away from the world, we have a tendency when we're suffering and a tendency to try to make life easy by pulling ourselves away from the world. And everything and everyone in the world, at that time, as soon as you pull away, becomes an object. Everything and everyone becomes object. And when there's an object, when everyone and everything's an object, it is easier to not see yourself a part of it, to not be connected to it, and to not see oneself as a part of everything and everyone.

[17:36]

So that's what we're dealing with a bit today. You know, groups, ideas, everything, a lot of things are becoming isolated and disconnected. And when we become disconnected, it's easier to hate upon something that is not you. It's easier to hate an object. And so objectification must happen first, and that's for hatred to appear. And so that is what we're dealing with today, and this kind of pulling away and isolating ourselves. So even that it's hard, when we're pulling away and isolating ourselves to protect ourselves from the harm or the suffering, we're still suffering. because we're still not connected. So we actually reinforce that suffering rather than engaging with people and still staying connected and still being in the fire of today. Of today's world, what we're dealing with is this fire and still being in it and still walking with each other in this fire. And so when we pull ourselves away from the world, everything and everyone in the world becomes objectified.

[18:43]

And this is true with love too. We can also love the object. And if it's an object, then it has conditions, and then we manipulate the object, we move the object around, that object could be a person, place, or thing, until it makes us feel this experience of love. So love also can be a place of objectification, and also prevents you from feeling harmony and peace, prevents you from non-suffering, and keep you disconnected. So sometimes people say, if we just love each other, that's fine. But when we just love some and not the other, then we're in that place of objectification. And I was saying the other day to someone that I'm not sure of this, but I think we're the only species, the human species, it's the only species that turns and runs away at the sight

[19:46]

of our own, if it's different. We become frightened of our own. Maybe a few dogs might be scared of a bigger dog or a bark or something. But I haven't seen too often that in nature, where we will turn away from our own, you know, because of fear, and continue to be disconnected. When connection is really wanting to show itself up, and you can feel that when you're sitting. So in sitting meditation, Zazen, you start to feel a connection with yourself. And then even you might begin to feel a connection with those around you. And so as the connection comes up for us, sometimes it starts to rise. So we don't have to work at it. It's already there. It starts to rise. And we do something really quick to shut it down if we're not ready. Something, you know, turn the corner, do something else. But it's there. It's arising. And so in meditation, what I've experienced in Zazen is allowing that connection to rise in me and therefore letting it come out to make a connection with other people.

[20:58]

Now, that's right. You don't have to take everybody home. You don't have to get married. You don't have to become best friends. You just allow the connection to happen as human beings, as a species. Right? And so meditation, I feel, gives us that opportunity to practice that. So that's a little more than just silent, a little more than just dealing with one's own personal suffering, but seeing it in a broader perspective, which may allow you to stay a little longer, to stay with the not knowing the difficulty of what life brings you today, to stay with the breath, to stay with learning how that might help and bring you into the expansiveness that many of these Zen masters and all masters in every spirituality has been trying to bring to us in different ways, in different paths. So let me check the time. My little lock in here. I love these kimonos.

[22:01]

So I just want to make sure I make these points, that meditation is not only to come and gain insight, for one's personal life. It is to bring a state of concentration and relaxation so that you are prepared to meet whatever comes up in your life. So that doesn't mean, okay, let me do this, or let me try to get this. It's just to give you a little, I'm trying to give you a little wave in your ocean, just a little space in that ocean to ride upon, to keep you Moving, you know, in a way of breathing. You don't have to be Buddhist to do this, as I named various traditions. You know, a way of allowing the expansiveness and to allow our lives to come up in front of us and then together in front of everyone. And that, in community, that's why Sangha is so powerful. Because you get to do that with others. And you get to, you know, those waves get bigger.

[23:06]

And you get to ride them, you know, whew. Whoo, that was a wave. You know, and see it as that. Whoo. You know, get back instead of trying to crawl back to the shore, you know, where your feet are on the ground a little bit because the sand does slip. So when you become calm in meditation, and that is not ultimate destination, none of these things have a destination. This is the beginning of preparing oneself to see oneself. You're finally relaxed enough and still enough to allow this rising and connection with oneself to come forward. Not a technique, but rather a path to see beyond the clutter of life. Just a path, or just a part of the ride. One can say meditation prepares you to meet yourself, your family, your community, and be open to a lineage of ancestors that have brought you to this life.

[24:10]

A lot of people get nervous with that word ancestors. You know, like, uh-oh, where are we going with that? And so we're just talking about the people that have come before you. There's a really big ancestor sitting behind me, a statue of him, you know, that we are grateful to for his teachings. So it's just as simple as that. So the ancestor can be the earth, it could be a plant, it can be the source of life from which we all came from. It could be your bloodline or the teachers of your spiritual path. Anything that has come before your own ideas and thoughts and strategies of life. Anything, and I'm just trying to open, I'm making an ocean here. Want to jump in? Yeah, listen, I'm trying to open up so that whatever we're doing is part of that ocean. Everything and everyone is part of our lives. And I think that that's important to remember and realize. In other words, meditation can lead to a connection of life that is more than your one life.

[25:16]

More than your one life. And this is the expansiveness sages of old experienced and transmitted to us through thousands of other people, other beings. And... This is why it's a common thread in almost every spiritual path. So if you're beginning and you're even dealing with today's world in which we are living in, that we include everything, that we include it all. Doesn't mean you have to become it, accept it, belong to it. But that you know that it is still in your rate of vibration. And I brought this up. This is a quote from Kosho Uchiyama Roshi, which was one of Zenkei Blanche's favorite teachers. He said, everything I encounter is my life. Everything I encounter is my life. The most essential point in carrying on our practice is to wake up to this self that is inclusive of everything.

[26:28]

This means we have to realize over and over that all sentient beings fall within the boundaries of our lives. This means we have to realize over and over that all sentient beings fall within the boundaries of our life. And that's really hard. That sounds so easy. It sounds beautiful. But it's very hard. It's very difficult to when we come across the difficult times, or a difficult person, or a difficult place, or a difficulty within our own selves, or a difficult body, how can that be a part of our lives? And so, question is good. How can that be? And to walk with it and allow everything to be present so that you aren't disconnected, you aren't isolated. Because it's only through this process that the peace and the calm and harmony and all of these things can be met.

[27:32]

They cannot be manufactured and they can't be learned. You have to meet them. They cannot be learned. You have to meet these things in your life because they already exist. They already exist. We just haven't met them. We haven't come to these things in our lives because we have to come to ourselves first. We must come and so the practice is helping us to do that. Helping us to be a part of this life together. To be in this world together despite whatever happens. And to be there in a very concentrated way. In a way that I'm looking at you and I'm allowing, I'm looking at this and I'm allowing myself to see it. And I'm allowing my emotions because I'm a human being. You know, you're a human being. Allowing my emotions, and I'm feeling them, and I see them, and I know them. Allowing my voice.

[28:35]

Allowing my voice to learn to meet. Not learn to write speech, because you can learn all kind of techniques on write speech. But when you get emotional, you don't have but a minute, you're not going to remember that long laundry list. You're just going to... So this is life, and you will trip. You will trip, and you will get up. Or if you're in the water, you may go down under, and the water feels heavy. You're practicing how to move through these waves. And I have a personal practice I do sometimes. And that is when things are troubling. You know, I put my hands together. And I bow to that thing. Or that person or that one inside me.

[29:38]

If I'm outside, if I'm walking around, I'd be busy bowing a lot. But, you know, I could have it in here, an inner bow. And in that inner bow, I'm connected. I'm allowing the connection to come up. And the inner bow also brings my practice of sitting and everything else I have learned from other paths. And so it allows expansiveness and a connection. And it brings the practice into an incredible engagement with life. There's many ways to engage life, to have an engaged practice. It could be every minute. It could be right now. You could be an engaged spiritual warrior. It's just that simple. And then it's not. Okay. Thank you. Thank you for listening to this podcast offered by the San Francisco Zen Center.

[30:40]

Our Dharma talks are offered at no cost and this is made possible by the donations we receive. Your financial support helps us to continue to offer the Dharma. For more information, visit sfcc.org and click Giving. May we fully enjoy the Dharma.

[31:00]

@Transcribed_UNK
@Text_v005
@Score_90.9