This podcast is offered by San Francisco's Zen Center on the web at sfcc.org. Our public programs are made possible by donations from people like you. Good evening. As many of you know and some of you don't know, we are in the midst of what we call a practice period, a period of time when we, through mutual support, increase our involvement in our practice. And before dinner, we break into small groups and we discuss a topic. And the topic for this evening in the small groups was for each person. to reflect and recount to their group an event, a pleasant event and an unpleasant event.

[01:07]

But to recount it in a particular way, to recount it in how it registered as a physical experience, what kinds of feelings it evoked when it happened, and what kind of thoughts it evoked. In many ways, it's a classic Buddhist practice. And the discipline of recounting it in that way is It stands in contrast to how we would more usually recount an experience we have. More usually, we fit it into the context of the agendas of our life. We fit it into our personal psychology, how it affected us.

[02:19]

in terms of the issues and agendas that arise for us through our personality and psychological makeup. So, in contrast to that, this is something more particular, more exact, and in some ways, simpler. Bless you. this was to recount something that had happened. And of course, that has its own limitation, because then we're relying upon our memory. And I think many of us know just what kind of tricks our memory can play. But even so, to take something out of the drama of your life, out of the stream of consciousness, and to just notice it, What was the event?

[03:23]

How did it register in your body? And in that moment of registering, what were the feelings that were stirred up? And what stories or thoughts came along, followed in, in relationship to those feelings? In some ways, it provides us with information that helps us to make more sense to ourselves of who we are. And from some of the foundations of Buddhism, it offers us an illustration of some fundamental Buddhist teachings. And it also offers us a way, a guide, to zazen, and particularly zazen in the Soto school of just sitting.

[04:28]

So as we attend to the particulars, it's like it asks us to attend almost impersonally. It's not so much, did you like the event? Was it what you were hoping for? Did it make you feel good about who you are? Or any other of the more usual agendas that flow through our personality? It's just something simpler. What was the event? And then the simple demarcation, pleasant or unpleasant. Not good or bad, appropriate or inappropriate. you know, skillful or unskillful, just something quite uniquely subjective.

[05:35]

Was it experienced as pleasant or unpleasant? In the Buddhist analysis of the self, you know, each momentary self comes together through five attributes. And one of those attributes is feeling. The word is Vedana. But it's not feeling as in a developed emotion. It's feeling more as in the immediate gut response. And so talking about pleasant and unpleasant is drawing us back to that kind of relationship to the experience. What was your gut response? And how did that gut response register?

[06:38]

If it was pleasant, you know? How did it ripple through your body, your physiology? How did it ripple through your emotional makeup? What did it stir up in your mind? And as we come to this level of particularity, it's asking us to set aside certain aspects of our personal involvement. Yeah, but what does that mean to me? How is that relevant to me and my world and what I want and what I'm afraid of and how I want people to see me or not see me? It sets all that aside. So in a way, it's an impersonal involvement.

[07:42]

And it's an impersonal involvement that shines light on the personal. Because as we pick our experience apart like this, we get an inkling of the passion that flows through our life. I think often that in the process of our practice, in the process of trying to promote awareness, we dabble with some version of suppression or control. Suppress that experience so you can be aware, or control that experience so you can be aware. But I think it's more accurate to say something about experiencing it so exactly

[08:44]

that you don't get lost in your commentaries about it. So the exactingness of the details. And then from that place, the subjectivity, the passionate subjectivity of our life starts to reveal itself. In the small group I was in, we only got through unpleasant. We didn't get to pleasant. But we still had a good time. But I was struck by just bearing witness to each person's experience. Just each person saying, this event happened. And being unpleasant, it had some poignancy.

[09:52]

You could feel. There's a book called The General Theory of Love, and the gist of the book is that there's part of our brain... that sensitizes the limbic region of our brain, sensitizes to each other's feelings. And I would say sensitizes us to Vedana, this kind of visceral experience we have. So as the person recounts their difficult, their unpleasant experience, feeling, how in this almost paradoxical way, the exacting, impersonal, detailed report reveals something extraordinarily tender and vulnerable about who the person is, and as we feel it, about what it is to be human.

[11:04]

I mean, who is not? Who does not have pleasant and unpleasant experiences? Who does not have a feeling response? Who does not weave that into an emotional response? Who does not accompany it with thoughts? And to bear witness to each other doing this, and then to pause, and then move to the next person. And to experience, this is someone who is separate from me. And then at the same time to experience, this is not so separate. The details may be separate of exactly how this happened and the circumstances of their life.

[12:12]

but this process that we go through continually as a human being. And as we bear witness to it, as we sense the feeling, as we hold in our mind's eye the particulars of this person's life experience, as we acknowledge this is other, but this is also connected. The teachings of the Dharma start to become palpable, start to become evident. This is other, and it's also the human condition. We are separate, and we're a one being.

[13:19]

And then within the self, there is both the passion play of our momentary existence, moment after moment, in its subjective authenticity and authority, And then there's the kind of dispassionate acknowledgement. So be it. This is how it is right now. And these two... This is what we call sandokai. The interplay between the singularity of awareness. Just attending... to whatever comes and whatever goes. The impermanence, the energy of the flow of life. And then the multiplicity.

[14:26]

Each person has exactly their own experience. Each moment of experience we have has its own unfolding, its own characteristics. So we are both passionately a self, And at the same time, that self is constructed of the aggregation of these momentary existence. So self and no-self interplay, as the Sandhu Kai says, like the front and back foot in walking. Without the pausing, without the connecting to the momentary experience, we get lost in the story. We get entranced. We get enmeshed.

[15:28]

We don't quite know what's going on, even though the energy and the passion of it are throbbing through our being, evoking our emotions, stimulating our thoughts, energizing our behaviors. It's the moments of awareness that help us to notice, oh, this is what's going on, these kinds of thoughts, these kinds of feelings. So to reflect upon it and start to see. This is indeed what goes on. And then to let that guide us into trying to bring it into real time, so we can be aware of this as it happens, which is quite a challenge.

[16:34]

And I would say even the practice of reflecting upon it, especially... some of the tell-tale signs you can look for. If something keeps rattling around inside of you, recurring thoughts around the same incident, if something had a particularly strong intensity that you feel like it's still embodied, like you can still feel the shakiness or the tightness or something in your body, a good sign that that might be something worth reviewing. If your mind is replaying and replaying, what exactly happened? What was the physical experience? What was the feeling? What thoughts arose right then?

[17:39]

can we see this interplay of how life comes into being? This is essentially the teaching of the five skandhas. There's more features to it than this. But just for now, I'll focus on this one, Vedana. Okay, I won't. I was going to say them all, but I'll take it in a different track. Here's where I want to take it. I want to link it to a couple of Zen koans. The second and third koan of the Blue Cliff Records. The second koan of the Blue Cliff Records is Joshu's The Great Way, The Way of Practice, The Way of Authentic Awake Living. The way of authentic, awake living is not difficult.

[18:59]

Just avoid picking and choosing. This is a little bit like a cosmic joke. We can't avoid picking and choosing, but the great way is not difficult when you don't pick and choose. So draw your own conclusions. However, we can, in a particular moment, in that moment of noticing the event, in that moment of experiencing the event, we can step out of picking and choosing and just let it be what it is. And we taste, in that moment, the great way. We taste, in that moment, authentic, awake living. And then, of course, it gets swamped by all the agendas and fears and desires and regrets and embarrassments that have accumulated and rattle around inside us.

[20:08]

But still, we have that taste. We have that glimmer. And the more we interject into this life called me, these moments of awaking to the great way, the more we interject that, the more plausible it comes as a proposition about what life is really like or can be like. But it becomes plausible. that life can be lived without being enmeshed, entranced, ensnared inside self-centered agendas. It's not inevitable that we're bound in that way. That we can put it on pause.

[21:15]

We can experience something different. And really zazen is the dedicated practice of returning to simplicity of momentary experience. Again and again and again. And as we do that, not as an act of suppression, not as an act of control, but more as an act of engaging what already is it's not a problem that we're passionate about existing our problem comes up when we want to control it and suppress it and avoid it and make it more than what it is any particular moment So moment after moment, returning to Joshua's authentic awake living through just letting it be exactly what it is.

[22:28]

This is Zen. Okay, that's the first idea. Second idea is Master Ma's sun-faced Buddha, moon-faced Buddha. story, the koan is this. Master Ma is unwell. I think actually he was dying. It doesn't exactly say that in the koan. And his attendant asks him, well, how is it? No? How is it when a Zen teacher, someone who's devoted their life to being in the moment, how is it when they're sick And Master Mah said, sun-faced Buddha, moon-faced Buddha.

[23:33]

The sun has warmth. The sun gives warmth. The sun gives light. Buddha is awakened. awakenedness. It's to be awake to the warmth, the passion, the aliveness of being human. To discover that zazen is not about control or suppression. It's not a great, horrible mistake that you were born and now have a conditioned existence, that you now have a personality, that you're now inclined to think and feel a certain way.

[24:43]

That is not the enemy of being aware. That does not obscure or conflict with the practice of awareness. When engaged, just as it is, sun-faced Buddha. The pleasant, the unpleasant is experienced physically, emotionally, mentally. The dynamic energy of aliveness, sun-faced Buddha. Moon-faced Buddha. The moon is illuminated by the sun and sheds light on the earth. The dispassionate observation of the particulars of the events of our life.

[26:02]

Acknowledging this gives rise to this, in accompaniment to this, setting in motion this. This event, experienced as unpleasant, gives rise to this emotion and this emotion. Those emotions set forth, trigger these kinds of thoughts. these kinds of descriptions of who I am, of what the world is. And that proceeds out, that ripples out, into judgments, conclusions, other emotions. This powerful human capacity to just notice it. A kind of coolness. like a cool awareness, like the moonlight.

[27:12]

And as we deal with the human condition, to hold up both of these as Buddha, the passion play of our life as Buddha, and the momentary dispassionate noticing and awareness as Buddha. They're both Buddha. Whether it's pleasant or unpleasant, these come forth as our practice. In the seven factors of awakening, the first three factors, bringing forth awareness, bringing forth an attentiveness, an inquiry, not figuring it out.

[28:34]

the inquiry that notices the quality of the sign that the traffic rushing by. Is it experienced as pleasant or unpleasant or neutral? It's not something you figure out, it's something that with that quality of attention becomes evident. And the third quality in cultivating the attributes of awareness, the third quality is persistence. When you lose it, come back. You know, for anybody who sad zazen more than a couple of times, you discover this is a fundamental ingredient of zazen, getting distracted and coming back.

[29:42]

These three qualities. Attentiveness, kind of inquiry that can come with it, and a persistence. And then what this gives rise to is a release of energy. Because as we live the passion play of our life, usually we we tie up the energy that's flowing through our involvement, our engagement. When you sit sasana and you make it an expression of suppression and control, by the time the period's finished, you're exhausted. You've been working very hard. It's very hard to suppress and control what goes on inside a human experience.

[30:59]

It's like when we were sitting in our circle before dinner in the practice period tea group. As we went around the room, and each person just spoke simply, directly about their experience, and the rest of us attended to it. Actually, it was hard not to attend to it. There's something about attending to the human experience directly has an ability to it. When someone's speaking their truth, there's an ability, there's an allure. And in addition to feeling that connectedness, a feeling of energy. As we enter the moment and literally discover what is it to be in the moment without some agenda as to what it should be or what it shouldn't be.

[32:22]

choose shoes with avoiding picking and choosing. As we explore that and actualize that, something is energized. More exactly, the energy of the moment is allowed to vibrate through engaging it directly. rather than trying to change it into something else. So in Zen we have all sorts of strange statements. Zazen, sit zazen. Just sit. Let the breath breathe the breath.

[33:26]

All trying to offer some guidance around what it is to experience the moment without an agenda to change it in some way. And it's a very exacting practice. And as we experience those moments, something like savoring the moment, something like letting the moment soak in. When you have that taste of non-doing, to let non-doing reverberate through the experience of body and breath and awareness.

[34:34]

To let something be actualized, to let the process of experiential learning start to reveal itself and to teach. So the attention, the inquiry shifts from ideas, new notions as to what practice is and what practice isn't, it shifts from that to learning from the experience that happens. This is close to the heart of just sitting. Dogen Zenji, each noontime we chant a piece by the founder of Soda Zen, Dogen Zenji, called Gigi Yuzamai.

[35:46]

And it's about, when you engage in this kind of experiential learning, it has its own kind of enjoyment. It's like it's teaching us something fundamental about being alive, about how to let a human being, in the midst of all the things that have happened for them, savor the moment just as it is. So when those moments arise, something like savoring. And to interject those moments throughout our day. And discover that we can give over, we can become one with all sorts of experiences.

[37:00]

And strangely and wonderfully, part of the training is to give over to pleasant experiences. The unpleasant experiences we seem to be attracted to. So the balancing factor is to quite deliberately give over to the pleasant, whether it's just the warmth of the sun on your body. The appreciation when someone holds the door open for you. The sense of connection as you sit in a small group. The gratitude you feel just before you eat, acknowledging that a group of people have been working in the kitchen for the last three hours making this meal. bring into our life the pleasant.

[38:15]

And as we do that, it gives us some insight into how we tend towards a kind of self-indulgence and how really that's not the nourishment we need. The nourishment we need is more simple It's more exactly pleasant. Our self-indulgence tends to accumulate around a particular kind of agitation or excitement. The pleasant tends to cultivate around the savoring. the giving over to, the melting into, the enjoyment of.

[39:19]

So Dogen Zenji, in his piece, he describes this, actually, this kind of attention, this kind of involvement, as enjoying the self. Self-employing and enjoying samadhi, continuous content. Okay. So you can enjoy those two statements. Joshu's stepping into direct experiencing and letting it be just what it is. It's like cracking open the shell of the world according to me and letting something greater be experienced.

[40:39]

and then Master Mas. Sun Buddha, Moon Buddha. When it's passionate, that's Buddha. When it's dispassionate, that's Buddha. Everywhere you turn, Buddha. Just let it be. Let it teach you, rather than getting filled up with your ideas and opinions and judgments about what it should be. Thank you. 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 sfcc.org. and click giving. May we all fully enjoy the Dharma.

[41:50]

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