Good morning. Good morning. How do you step from the top of a hundred foot pole? Zen practice is a very interesting process. Sort of crystallized in Sashin. You discover you're part of

[01:01]

a great drama, something like the world's fierce need to change you. The cold presses on you, the wet presses on you. The cold night lasts too long and the warm day passes too soon. And if such is your karma, you leave the practice period before its triumphant conclusion. Even the creek can roar so loud you can't hear the stories you're telling yourself. and conditions of the world pressing upon you.

[02:13]

And not to give up without a fight. I still remember Nova Ray a decade and a half ago saying to me when she was about 10, So little time and so much to complain about. When we look carefully, it seems like we have a response to everything. Shadows. flickering across the floor, the way we're served lunch, the subtle characteristics of our own breath.

[03:20]

We have conclusions and judgments giving birth to intentions and strategies. And this great drama goes on. The world's fierce need to change us and our determined effort to have it our way. And who's going to win? Well, time will tell. But in the meantime, we watch and as we bear witness to it something sinks in it's like the front and back foot and walking it's like the inhale and the exhale it's like something

[04:34]

something in that fierce drama, it's not exactly that it resolves itself. It's not exactly that it comes into sweet and permanent harmony. But something, somehow or another, The rain that would never stop, stops. And the clouds that covered the whole sky disappear. And the vast emptiness, 15 billion years deep, presents itself. And the sun shines. How do such things happen? Is this the fruits of our diligent effort?

[05:41]

Or just another day? Another one of those every days? And through this process, discovering diligence, persistence, dedication, patience. Our petulant self-indulgence, I want it my way, has been taken to task some of the rough edges have been worn down. We just follow the schedule.

[06:55]

Sometimes cheerfully, sometimes something else. But still, not so much extraneous drama. So it is. Another day. Yeah, I like that the sun's shining. Curiously, something feels like it's seeped into our bones. not that we're so clear what the heck zazen is or how to do it but somehow sitting on our cushion has a familiarity and then

[08:14]

To spoil it all, Chung Sa comes along and says, okay, now just take a step off a 100-foot pole. Okay, now you've started to come to terms with this great existential drama between the assertion of self and the fierce impermanence of the world, what would it be to enter that world? What would it be to release your rearguard action, to keep it at bay at all costs?

[09:24]

Or maybe reluctantly accepting or tolerating what can't be kept at bay? to not hold back. What would it be to practice in a way that was the wind of the Buddha house that brings forth the gold of the earth and makes fragrant the cream of the long river? This is what Chongsa is asking about. This is the deep request of a human life.

[10:47]

To live. in a hesitant way? What strategy can I adopt that I'll avoid as much pain as possible? Or have to face as little uncertainty as possible? What would it be to step into this bold world? So the clues are plentiful. The first response is back to basics.

[11:50]

being body except now with the accumulated effort that has brought us to this point we're sensitized to what it is to be body more capable of noticing the subtle details of posture. And similarly with breath, to notice the subtle details of breath. The difference between sort of noticing your breath and sort of keeping something else going in your mind. What is it to be absorbed in the exhale?

[13:02]

What is it to breathe out everything? Suzuki Roshi said, Nirvana is following one thing through all the way to the finish. That kind of exhale. And letting in the whole world with the inhale. Noticing the subtle holding in our body, hesitant, and letting the inhale invited to release and receive. To receive in and to let go.

[14:13]

The very activity of breath becoming the standard bearer of impermanence. The very activity of breath, preaching the dharma of non-attachment, practicing the dharma of non-attachment, actualizing the dharma of non-attachment. As Prajnatara says, this sutra I read hundreds and thousands of times. Such engagement, not because some great drama is going on, but because it represents the true order

[15:25]

of what is. Chung Seo was asked, how would you do today? And he said, I went for a walk. He said, where'd you go? He said, oh, I wandered over the hills following after the fragrant grasses. returning with the fallen flowers. Like this. An allusion to a Japanese, a Chinese saying that alludes to a whole life. Our life follows out after possibilities, adventures, and returns as things come to fruition, as things come to close.

[16:45]

Like each day, like each breath, So it's not like the mind, the workings of our being have gone suddenly silent. It's more like they're just not that convincing anymore. We don't feel so obliged to take them seriously. and devote our attention to them. Something else is starting to come forth asserting a different order of being. Something has been

[18:03]

garnered by that diligence, perseverance, patience, dedication. Even though in its workings it felt like it constantly missed the mark, it gave no triumphant successes. Still, The dual can enter the world with its endless sky and its bright sun, even though we insist on taking with us the chatter of our memories and hopes. Can we start to feel the possibility of taking a step from the top of a hundred foot pole?

[19:20]

Can we start to feel the possibility of entering the world? As Dogen Zenji says, but the ten thousand things, the myriad things come forth and enlighten the self. Our old enemy, the fierce world that wants to change us, surprisingly, makes a good friend. The sights, signs, smells and tastes support awareness. they invite us beyond the intrigues of self. When we're entrenched in the intrigues of self, the world is just a place to play the mud.

[20:31]

We carry forth an old pattern of relating and we assign characters in our present environment to play the roles. Okay, you'll be my mother, you'll be my father, you'll be my sister I don't like, and you'll be my best friend. Okay? Let's get to it. And magically, with the right cues, the theater takes place and the drama unfolds. But as we've worn off some of those rough edges, as that fierce world has turned us and turned us back and turned us over another time, something has ripened.

[21:36]

We can enter it. and let it be itself. In the image of Zen, it's like it's springtime, something new, new possibilities, new blossoms, new fragrances. And in our sitting, when we become aware of what's happening in the moment, to meet as fully as possible the request to drop it.

[22:41]

more than ever before, what is it to just let it go? I know that this old nagging story is one of your best friends and you don't go anywhere without them, but what is it this one time to go forward alone? As David White says, this is the time of my adult aloneness. I'll try it without that cast of characters I call my life. I call the things I hate, resent, yearn for, and fear.

[23:48]

What is it to be exposed to the golden wind? What is it to enter the timeless spring that each day, each moment just comes forth vibrant in its own being? take up that request. That is the latest version of an old drama. This request to drop. But more because something in his nose, it just doesn't work.

[25:02]

It's not really fun. You know? doesn't really make us all that happy. You know? And when it all comes down to it, why shouldn't we just be happy? Why shouldn't we just notice what's going on? Take an interest in it. this miraculous blossoming of conditioned existence. So the basics don't change. But as something shifts in our attitude,

[26:10]

The workings are illuminated in a very interesting way. The fierce world becomes a possible new best friend. those old enemies that you love to think about and feel the pain they've caused. There's a place in a poem by Czeslaw Malaish where he talks about working in his garden and he paused and he straightened up He lives, when he wrote the poem, he lived near the Bay Area, near San Francisco Bay.

[27:20]

He says, and I straightened up, and I looked out across the bay, and at that moment, there was nobody I resented. You know? How amazing. At that moment, it was okay. All the stuff that happened, okay, it happened. So that, that kind of step from the 100-foot pole, that step into new territory. product of some diamond bright concentration. Not the product of some exquisite wisdom of penetrating emptiness.

[28:33]

Just allowing something to fall away, allowing something to straighten up and look straight ahead. And to do this in Zazen, to just literally let something lift Let something open. If we want to get a little mechanical we could say, let the senses open. Not to get too contrived, not to turn it into some, you know, new design.

[29:44]

for an improved self. But more resting upon having tasted and experienced directly all the trouble you can get into. Just quietly deciding, hmm, okay, How about something else? The fragrant grasses of this moment. Just as it appears. The letting loose of the heart. As Dagan said this morning, I don't think it's mind only.

[31:00]

Heart only? And actually interesting, the word shin, that often gets translated as mind, more accurately, is heart and mind. The heart-mind only. And of course it is stepping into new territory. And that's a very interesting proposition. We can step into new territory and ask, how do I know I'll be okay? How do I know I'll be able to deal with what comes up? Or we can step into new territory thinking,

[32:04]

Hmm. An adventure. I wonder what's going to happen. And I wonder how I'm going to respond to it. And who I'm going to meet there. And Chung Sa, you know, Implicit in his image, one step from the top of a 100-foot pole. He didn't say, you're standing on completely level ground. You know exactly what's going to happen next. Now take a step. It's not that proposition. take a step beyond the habitual way of being.

[33:17]

The basics of practice will show us the habitual way. They'll illuminate the request of not grasping the habit. than open up. So after lecture, if such a time ever happens, this you still will take us on a walk in a brave new world to stay embodied to stay here but open up to everything

[34:44]

as if to be in the moment required the support of this previously fierce world. That the very activities of this world and how they're enlivening the senses is the needed support for being present. that the activities of this world are inviting us beyond the intrigues of the self. Inviting us beyond the world according to me. As Dogen Zenji says, grass, trees, walls and pebbles coming forth and declaring the Dharma grass trees walls and pebbles offering up the fragrance of spring to let it undo to let it redo

[36:16]

And the first woman says, taking the step, all things in the ten directions become your true body. Dogen Zenji says, the myriad things come forth and confirm the self. This deep ingrained habit of mind which goes forth projecting its version of reality onto the myriad things is forgotten. And the myriad things come forth And amazingly, we are in three-dimensional space.

[37:32]

And it's technicolor with surround sound. It's like this marvelous piece of theater where the stage set is extraordinary. And the actors in it play the parts to perfection. And you get to participate. And it's all improv. So you don't even have to remember your lines. Trees saying, look, watch me be a tree.

[38:46]

See, see? This is tree. This is full commitment to practicing tree. Check it out. Go ahead, be full committed to being you. And the Blue Jays, you know? And the Creek saying, totally and utterly subject to causes and conditions. When it rains a lot, I get bigger. When it doesn't rain, I get smaller. If it's a steep gradient, I go fast. If it's a shallow gradient, I meander. But I'm fully, completely committed to being creek. One step from the top of a hundred foot pole.

[39:57]

What a truly silly notion. What good will become of it? Truly practice requires constant sweat of diligence and determination the profound skillfulness of penetrating emptiness and form and form and emptiness and no form and no emptiness how could it be as simple as just walking out into a three-dimensional world. And whose permission do we need to ask to be so foolish?

[41:19]

And when will the time be ripe for such an adventure? When has our life not asked us to step? When has our life ever said, just stay stuck in that moment and that will be the entirety of your life. we resist impermanence or shall we dance with it? Thank you.

[42:21]

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 and For more information, visit sfcc.org and click Giving.

[42:37]

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