This podcast is offered by the San Francisco Zen Center on the web at www.sfzz.org. Our public programs are made possible by donations from people like you. Good morning. Often I ask myself before I teach a class, what would be helpful? It's easy to sort of get caught up in your own thinking, which of course is what I did. Because I am asking myself what would be helpful. But I hope this will be helpful anyway.

[01:01]

What I thought was to go back through quickly, through Hotsubodai Shin, arising the aspiration, the intention, the realization of practice, and then Shinjin Gyakido. The process of learning from what's going on, from what happens when you try to practice, And then looking at Dogen Zenji's, what he points out in a practical way is what helps with both of those. I've covered them up, the highlights of them to my mind already, but this time I thought I'd lay them out a little bit more sequentially as he presented them. The reason I jumped around before was because I thought, I'll come back to that.

[02:12]

The bodhisattva vāvyā, I'll come back to that. And a few other things. Trying to emphasize in a... in a way that would appeal, maybe touch you deeply, or sort of stir up a kind of ownership for the path of practice. It's something in you, as you go through all the experiences you go through, something in you has sort of taking on the notion that to be present for it, to experience it, as the experience of the moment, rather than get lost in the intrigue of the content.

[03:18]

And to my way of thinking, this is kind of like a key attribute of Zen practice. Certainly, we can think about certain things and they have an effect on us. There are certain edifying notions presented in the path of practice. But the everyday mind and the bits and pieces that it produces, to hold them also in the light of awareness, And sometimes that's extraordinarily helpful because sometimes we have insights into the makeup of our own conditioned personality. And often as we have them, there's a kind of a wonder. And it took me this long to see that.

[04:24]

I've sort of known that for a long time, but somehow, right now, it's brand new. It's interesting because often those moments are very encouraging. To see something about yourself as brand new that actually you've known for quite a while. Yes, things annoy me. But to be present for a moment of annoyance and seeing what an extraordinary event it is. Oh, the way that person did that annoyed me. Isn't that just amazing? And then the mind of annoyance, you know, in a way it...

[05:29]

It collects in the energy of emotion. It may be the reinforcement of psychological significance. And the great gift of this style of practice, you know, we could say this is a non-dual practice. In other words, everything that arises is an opportunity for awareness. And can that process become pervasive? Can that process become thorough? When we have those moments once every three or four days for five seconds, or shall they pop up? like spring flowers all over the place.

[06:30]

So this kind of request of ourselves, what does practice ask of me? This kind of delicate, radically honest, engagement of a self. And of course, if along with our radical honesty, there's ferocious self-criticism, the process becomes complicated. If I'm radically honest, I suffer. Well, guess what? you're going to be inclined to avoid the suffering and, by extension, avoid the radical honesty. So, patience, benevolence, to set us for moving into awakening,

[07:55]

And as we open, we see that the path of practice, what does it ask of us? Everything. And maybe a little more than that. But we didn't realize yet we had to offer. And then, in a way it asks us to classically speaking, to not be driven by what we want and what we don't want. It's so easy, it's so readily, simple practice in early Buddhism. What's happening? Is it pleasant or unpleasant? What happens in relationship What happens in relationship to unpleasant?

[08:59]

In a way, it's a very simple notion of practice and very powerful. And then in another way, it's very difficult because the mind and the heart move so quickly in relationship to their experience. That's just the nature of them. And often, that practice we're engaging it retrospectively. Hmm, why did I get so wind up? What was that all about? Well, this triggered unpleasant, unpleasant triggered this, and that, you know, inquiry, you know, learning. Towards the start of Shinjin Yakido, Dogen says, without the inquiry, attending to what's happening doesn't bring forth the dharma, the dharma of awakening.

[10:18]

And this inquiry... non-dual inquiry, it stands in contrast to the dualistic tendencies of mind and heart. We like what we like and we don't like what we don't like. And we're very versatile at wrapping that up. in a convincing story. So not to gauge it as good or bad, appropriate or inappropriate, but to gauge it in the light of awareness. this sensibility, this inquiry, this commitment, this response throughout the day and to allow it to engage every kind of mind that arises.

[11:45]

The mind that's trivial. I wonder, Nate, when we're going to get sesame soybeans again. I don't know, maybe that's not trivial. Or the mind that thinks, another mass shooting in high school breaks my heart. Another troubled kid shooting down their classmates. That mind that blossoms out into compassion. And all the minds in between. Can any and all of them be seen

[12:56]

as the teachings of being alive. Okay. Okay, that's the preamble. It's to get you warmed up. Now Zen Master Dogen. Dogen holds it up as in Hotsubodai Shin. It's interesting if you want to read, modern scholarship says that this fascicle Dogen gave in the evening to the monks at the monastery and the fascicle before it, arising the unsurpassable mind, he gave during the day to a group somewhere.

[13:59]

And if you're so interested, you know, you can see how his mind moved and his dharma moved from afternoon to evening. Fortunately for us, the evening one had a lot less... Buddhistic references to... How certain states of consciousness are represented are typically or a certain Buddha is emblematic of that state of consciousness. It sort of obliges you to be conversant with those different images to see actually what he's saying. But Hatsuburashin is a little more straightforward, although of course

[15:04]

Each dharma has a great depth. So it says a rising way-seeking mind is paramount and it's the source of practice. And it's initiated by the bodhisattva vow. And actually he says, even if you're just beginning with that practice, still it's profound. And I think it's a real conundrum for us. If any one of us looks carefully at our mind and notices what's preoccupying us or what comes up most readily.

[16:15]

They're much more self-centered thoughts than thoughts of the well-being of everyone. And yet in Sangha. I remember several years ago, someone from overseas had a problem and needed to go home, and they had no money. When the Sangha heard that, the money, the donations just happened. And the person said to me, Actually, it's kind of painful. It's painful to feel all this generosity. It challenges my own self-sufficiency and way of self-protecting.

[17:29]

It's like my heart needs to grow bigger to be able to hold this generosity. And then they went home and did what they need to do, and then they said, well, I have a whole bunch left. What will I do with it? I can't just spend it on myself. It's donations from the bodhisattva mind. Pass it on. Let it permeate further and further. Let it help the world. The reason I would use a story like that is because the bodhisattva vow, our vow to awaken with all beings, can become

[18:37]

lofty and abstract. Oh yeah, that's a wonderful aspiration. But it's like a cloud in the sky. It's majestic and distant. Whereas when we attend to what arises in our midst, something more accessible, something more moving comes up. And along with this notion of the bodhisattva vow, Dogen brings up this other phrase that I mentioned, kanodoko. The interaction that calls forth, that brings to life the moment, and how within Buddhism as a religious activity it's what you might call the mystical beseeching or invoking the mystical.

[20:06]

Often it's referenced as when offering incense at the altar or before the Buddha statue, some things evoke. Personally, I like to think of it more as the enactment of interbeing, and how, in a way, the bodhisattva vow is simply enactment of the interbeing. Someone told me once they went on a tour with Thich Nhat Hanh, and he said, he said, I want you to pair up, you know? And then here's how I want you to think about your body, that you're you, but actually now you have two bodies, you know? And like the way you take care of this body, take care of this body, you know?

[21:07]

Like, is this body okay? Is this body comfortable? Is this body getting enough to eat and drink? That kind of interbeing. The other way I mentioned it was being the one voice of chanting. that we all listen and we're all attending to participating in and being the voice of that one voice. And if you listen to our chanting, sometimes and sometimes not. But most of our practice is like that.

[22:12]

We shouldn't be either surprised or dismayed. That's the nature of practice. But those two notions Dogen puts forward in the fascicle. The Bodhisattva vow and the interbeing, the engagement in interbeing, however that might come up. And how we can explore that in so many ways. And then Shinjinjakuto, body-mind learning the truth, body-mind awakening in the way, awakening in the way of the way.

[23:27]

And the first thing Dogen says is, if there isn't the inquiry, some process doesn't self-service doesn't come alive. Then he quotes a koan. There are several koans that Dogen quotes frequently, and to my mind they seem like these are seminal teachings for him. And this coin is by Nangaku, who in response to a question from his teacher said, it's not that there's no practice or no realization, it's just that it can't be tainted. And Dogen quotes this many times in the course of his writings, it's not that there's no practice or no realization, it's just that it can't be tainted.

[24:42]

And we can understand it in two ways. Maybe before I say a word, you can just think, well, what does your mind do with that? So there's two ways we can think about it. And maybe there's endless ways to think about it, but here's how it arises in my mind The process of practice doesn't fall into good and bad, right and wrong, success and failure. What's happening now hasn't got an implicit judgment of the moment. It's non-dual. It's simply asking in an utterly open way, what's happening now?

[25:49]

The sound of the creek isn't a good sound or a bad sound. Hearing the sound of the creek isn't success. Not hearing it isn't failure. What's happening now cannot be tainted. It's completely itself, however it arises. So in a little bit more of dharmic language, the suchness of what is cannot be qualified by what the mind creates, the judgment or the response to it. And then the other way we can think about it is that the practice, there is such a thing as practice. You know, when early in his practice, Dogen brought up, and this I've read, was a seminal question for him, which in a way sounds wonderfully simple and naive.

[27:06]

If everyone's experiencing the moment all the time, if the suchness of what is is always abundant, then why do we practice? You know, if this is completely itself, why practice? You know, and then his own realization was, without practice, that is not realized. I have a question. You said about the creep being completely itself, and then you just said it again. How is anything completely itself? Experiencing the experience that's being experienced enables, manifests that experience.

[28:12]

And the more it's open to, engaged, the more it literally is what is. And the consciousness that engages like that experiences that fullness. Now, the mind that immediately jumps in or the mind that's agitated and sort of hears the creak and sort of doesn't hear it, the suchness is kind of clouded over. It's going to be short water for the summer.

[29:17]

It's going to affect the crops. Yes. And that mind also has the suchness. Dogen uses a phrase in the English translation of it as bits and pieces mind. But it's also, we could say, moment-to-moment mind, that mind that arises. This is one of the classifications he has in Shinjin Gakido. In the next mind, it's the mind of now. In the suchness of that, there is no qualification. It isn't conceptually, inside a certain place or time. And it's just the totality of what's happening. And any moment is available for that. But then Dogen says, without practice, that's not realized.

[30:23]

We can have the concept, but without the practice, the direct experience of it doesn't come up. I've thought about this question of resilience before. At some point, it came to me, I guess I'm curious, I think of it in terms of physical law, for example. Physical law? Yeah, like they've been part of the situation where people were around, and for a long time while they were around. Yes. But now that they were, you know, uncovered, brought to light, those concepts, those forces are now able to manifest this world we live in, such rockets into space, and produce heat where heat was not available before, and such. Is this, sometimes I feel like I make things more complicated than they need to be with, to practice, and I wonder if, to be in something directly with that.

[31:35]

Is it different? That we're making things more complicated? No, like this idea that, like, you know, when you say, like, you know, if suchness is the case, why do we need to practice? Yes. But I say, you know, if the laws of thermodynamics are the case, what difference does it make that we conceptualize them and build things with our understanding of them? It seems like literally, obviously, a huge difference. People know. those forces that our concepts refer to have been operating since the beginning of time. Is there something in addition to that that's going on in the realm of practice? Within your analogy, Dogen says that the learning. The inquiry is what creates the learning.

[32:41]

You know, I remember reading about Leonardo da Vinci and in his astute observation, he figured out, just from watching a stream, the basic laws of fluid mechanics. And it was like 200 years later before they became established as part of physics. But he just looked at water with a deeply inquiring mind. Now, does that mean water behaved differently before, or heat and cold behaved differently before? The learning requires certain kind of engagement. And then Dogen Zenji is saying in Kodung Nangaku that inquiry isn't judging.

[33:46]

What's happening now is not a judgment. Now the mind might generate judgments and even learning is not a judgment. And the rigor of science is, well, this is a hypothesis. We're not declaring an absolute. We're saying, according to observations, this seems to always be the case. Seems. This is another metaphor, but it comes from Dogen, and it's of the, there's an emperor, And he had a minister who took it upon himself to change the mirrors in the palace for every hour, every day, every month, every year. And that what I'm hearing in that has to do with inquiry as being placing the mirrors.

[34:55]

and allowing that space of reflection and self, not self, to appear in the suchness of the minute, the hour, the day, but sort of to be marked and held in that space as inquiry, as reflection. And so I'm sort of thinking of that as the impulse and not be as beneficial as they are, the pushing and harnessing of resources. What did pushing and harnessing of resources come in? Something in the outer space. Let me give you another story. I think this one's Scottish, about mirrors. So the lord of the manor looks in the mirror and says, is something wrong with that mirror? That's not me.

[35:56]

I don't have that, you know, belly. And he calls over his minister and says, this mirror is broken. Get me a good mirror. And the minister says, you know, something's required to get the good mirror. You have to go hiking in the hills early in the morning and you'll come across it. And so he hikes in the hills every day and then one day at the appropriate moment the minister hides a mirror where he can find it and he looks in it and says, see, that's the real me. So something about practice, you know, that it was all the real me, but somehow at a certain point something comes to fruition and there is acknowledgement, acceptance of the real me.

[37:04]

And then hopefully there's the insight. I don't know, in the Scottish way of telling it, the story ends there. the minister doesn't say to him, well, listen, it was always you, kid. I just needed to get you motivated. Yeah? I heard you say before that when this mirroring happens or when we notice, maybe talking about attending to ourselves and our patterns, that maybe that can be a pleasant experience or a joyous experience my experience is that when true mirroring happens especially to the deluded self that is the most terrifying thing in the world and we run as quickly as possible back to the safety of our delusions that to truly see how deluded we are shakes us to our very core and most of us

[38:21]

are definitely terrified of that. You know, I think there's truth to what you say. In the benevolence of practice, our aversion, our fear, our intimidation, there are also aspects of what we bring to the situation. Nangaku was saying, what you bring to the situation doesn't diminish, doesn't taint what is in the moment. There's not something terrible about waking up. Now, how we respond to it, and I would say there's the full range. There's all sorts of

[39:22]

you know, throughout spiritual literature, there's all sorts of stories about, you know, ecstatic opening. And there's stories about the dark night of the soul or the great struggle. You know, even Chakyamuni's story, you know, is a messy one, you know, sitting under the tree, being having all these visions and struggling and then doing all that asceticism where he almost kills himself, you know? It's a messy story. It wasn't kind of like he left the palace and then it all moved in a beautiful straight line. Yeah. I didn't hear you speaking, though, about enlightenment, actually. I heard you speaking maybe about... very early preparatory stages as Dogen maybe lays them out, right? That very early on, Shakyamuni, for example, he left his wife.

[40:23]

He left his children, right? He abandoned them. He was shook to his core, jumped over that wall, and ran. It took many years for him to come back to his wife. We need to be careful with, you know, It's important to hold Matt knowing. Here's another version of the same story. His mother died, and so he was raised by his mother's sister, who had wanted to follow the spiritual path. And as often happens between mother and child, even surrogate mother and child, the child is strongly influenced by the sensibilities of the mother. And so he had this in mind, but he had a familial responsibility to carry on the lineage of the family.

[41:33]

So he did, and when he had a child, he said, okay, here's the child, I've done my part, and now I'm going to leave. Nice story. It is a nice story, isn't it? But this is our don't know mind, right? It's neither affirming this or denying that. And that's part of the Zen tradition. As Suzuki Roshi so wonderfully and misguidedly said, the most important word is maybe so. Which is two words. But maybe so. Maybe the story you say, maybe the story I say, or maybe something entirely different. I know of a scholar who went to India about 15 years ago, and he was looking for the seminal arising of the bodhisattva vow, which up until then was more or less described as

[42:47]

a lay response to the limits of monasticism. And what he did was he read these inscriptions on stone, because obviously that's what was carved into the stone in that age. And he studied all those inscriptions, and what he concluded was that the way we were thinking about it in the West wasn't quite right. It wasn't simply a lay response to monasticism. It was in of itself an attempt to renew what you might call the original practice, not of monasticism, but of practice in a broader sense. And that in doing that, it had a more universal notion. It included both lay and monastic. Anyway, yes? If you listen to the way Seeking Mind talks or even just look at your own experience, nobody has come to this practice out of a vow to save all beings.

[43:57]

It's usually a sense of loss or something missing or a hurt. It's something very real and practical and I'm wondering... When Dogen takes the vow as the core of the practice, is he just talking from his particular experience, which maybe it was, it must have been for him to make it so important, but it doesn't seem to reflect the truth of the Sangha that I know? Yeah. I think it's a very important part, you know? But I would say this, you could take any one of us and and say, despite the persistence of our selfishness, despite the ways we feel we have been hurt and mistreated, we're here with a very dedicated aspiration to practice.

[45:06]

And maybe in some ways, I mean, the process of taking refuge, you know, we take refuge from and we take refuge in. You know, we're taking refuge from our suffering and we're taking refuge in the commitment to awakening. And I would say they have their own kanodoko, you know, that in the process of practicing that there is a reconciliation with our past. I think it's much more complicated than this, but just the simple notion that if I just stay agitated and distressed with all that's gone before, it's very difficult to be present for what's arising now.

[46:13]

So I would say, maybe for all of us, but I would say for most of us, there is a kind of a healing and a reconciliation that accompanies our, and I would say heroic, looking to practice. I would say everyone in this room, when they quietly and thoroughly ask what does practice ask of me, brings forth something heroic. And I think in that reconciliation with our past, as it comes forward and expresses itself now, how neat it would be if we just thought, okay, that's done. that pain and suffering is thoroughly removed from my being.

[47:21]

Usually there's all sorts of lingering impulses, habits of mind and heart. Hopefully now, and that's what I was saying earlier, can they be held as something to be aware of? Like when something annoys us, can we see it as a replay of an emotion that has roots in our history? And as we meet it now, we're re-meeting our history and the process of healing and reconciliation is still going on. And that's why I would stress the patience and the benevolence and kindness. Because there's just a utilitarian skillfulness to engaging what arises in a way that helps a settling and an opening of what's being experienced.

[48:37]

I mean, they are way-seeking talks. And if you think about it, they are incredibly honest, disclosing. And it's very seldom that someone says, and this person did it to me, and they're a terrible person, and they deserve to be, you know, they deserve all sorts of suffering, you know. You can hear in the talk, while there might be still residual pain, it gives rise to more than just aggression, revenge and resentment. Yes? Can you say it a little bit louder?

[49:43]

Sure. There's this passage. Yes. If you compare unsurpassable complete enlightenment with the beginner's aspiration for enlightenment, it is like comparing a blaze that destroys the world with the blinking of a firefly. Yet, if you arouse the intention of awakening others first, the two are inseparable. Yes. Yes. I was wondering because it seemed like on the one hand, When you say practice and enlightenment, it's not that there isn't practice and there isn't enlightenment. It isn't possible to take them. It sounds like there's a path, a kind of progressive path, maybe a further establishing of the mind, a deeper settling. And yet here it sounds like if you actually are able to arouse the aspiration to awaken others first, whatever might separate the advancing mind, That's totally indistinct, non-distinguishable from the absolute beginner's mind.

[50:55]

How I think about it is that he's saying when a state of consciousness arises where rather than the central theme of it be me and my well-being and my concerns, it's opening to interbeing. He's saying that that has the potential to be utterly transformative. And I think that's part of the gift of sangha. In the midst of the ways in which we perplex each other and annoy each other, There is also... We're fostering a deep connectedness, too. I think it's marvelous that we sit together and, to use Dogen's three minds, the vriddha of experiencing is becoming shared.

[52:01]

I think in some ways it's kind of like a mystery to us. I feel so connected to this person, and I don't know their last name. I don't know if they were born in New York or San Francisco or whatever. Or maybe they were born in some far-off land, which some of us were. I'm going to speed up a little bit because this was a preamble. Then, as I mentioned briefly earlier, then Dogen goes on and he starts to lay out, casting off and picking up. That way in which to drop something we're fixated on refreshes

[53:09]

It allows the next moment to have the quality of beginner's mind, to use the terminology we use. And he talks about that being an important part. And then another koan, one of Dogen's, I think of seminal koans, is Yakasin's Think Not Thinking. what is not thinking, non-thinking. I think the language here is unfortunate. I think the word think is overused because really, in simple logic, think-not-thinking is still thinking. if you're thinking it. I think it's more a matter of arousing the aspiration to experience is arousing the aspiration to not just be lost in thinking, to not be

[54:35]

constantly conceptualizing, to not be just lost in thoughts, but also to not be constantly conceptualizing the moment. Deeply ingrained as that is, it's also possible for our human consciousness to intend to experience. And Dogen uses this koan a lot. To my mind, it's like he's saying to us, please remember, it's about experiencing. It's not about refining your thinking about experiencing. OK, that's the preamble. So what supports, what sustains, what enables the arising of this disposition that stays close to what's happening now?

[55:49]

Usually, if you watch yourself, sometimes you feel inspired and you think, oh yes, practice is wonderful. And then sometimes you just don't want to get out of bed or you want to get to bed. And the wonderfulness is a little bit more elusive or just not very interesting. And then all sorts of variations on a thing. And regardless of the disposition of all those minds, can there be... What's happening now? Can there be a commitment to awareness? Maybe we could even say an instinct to awareness that isn't contingent upon what you might consider a virtuous mind in contrast to a non-virtuous mind.

[56:58]

Can there be a commitment that says, oh, that rebellious mind, that disinterested mind, that uninspired mind has its own teachings? That the vow is durable, that it stays with us. that it's not simply contingent upon those times when we feel energetic and clear and at ease and then we're saying yes to practice. Can it include the times you're not feeling energetic, something's disturbing or whatever? Three factors that enables this. And the first one is And each of these factors, with many factors in practice, when we're more in the throes of karmic constructions, they take on a certain demeanor, and then when we're more settled in the moment, they take on a more subtle demeanor.

[58:19]

To my mind, even though I've never really gone through a recovery process, I think of them as similar. When you start recovery, The first thing in the style of AA is stop drinking. Stop destroying your life and your mind and your body and other people's lives and minds and body. There's a kind of abstinence. There's a renunciation. And then what I've been told is That might be the beginning step, but in a way you're always a beginner. And I think our practice is similar. We all know what it is to find yourself as caught up in thought and then you drop it. Something is willing to let go of the attachment to that

[59:29]

particular thought and the emotion and whatever else, the imagery or the history that accompanies it. That there's a renunciation. And sometimes we can notice there isn't renunciation, that the mind goes back to thinking about it. In that moment, it's too attractive. There's some quality about it but we know the request. The request is to not grasp and cling to that object, that content of thought. Then, when consciousness is more subtle, the request is non-attachment.

[60:30]

And non-attachment is more subtle in that it doesn't have the implicit right and wrong of renunciation. If you think of what I was just saying a few minutes ago, the mind that arises that sort of says, to hell with Zazen, I just want to get to bed. and maybe that has implicit within it some kind of fixed ideas and attitudes. When there's non-attachment to that mind, then we can allow it to just be that moment, feel it, notice what it arises, notice how it's experienced in the body. So there's a delicate play for us.

[61:35]

If we're caught in it and we're lost in it, it takes us back to Dogen saying, without practice there's no realization. If we're lost in that mind, that lost within it doesn't have the light of awareness. We're just inside it and it's the whole story. When some things let go, there's the capacity to experience it. It can turn into, it can be an experience. And so in our practice, each of us in our own way, in our own ways of grasping and clinging, is challenged to learn. hmm, what do I grasp so thoroughly I get lost in it?

[62:38]

And what is it to kind of shed some light on that? And as I said quite a while ago, sometimes it can even be retrospectively. There's kind of a danger in retrospection because now we're talking about my memory of that experience. But even so, sometimes it can offer us guidance. And certainly with our days being so long, and sometimes our days covering all four seasons, and being a conditioned existence, in one day you might feel deeply inspired. regretful that you ever came here, utterly self-absorbed, and have your heart totally open to the whole community.

[63:44]

In a way, that's part of the gift of being here, you know. And as you get used to it, it's like, okay. In the morning, it's bitterly cold by... afternoon work meeting, it's delicious and everything in between. That there's a lot of fluctuation. And this is where the non-dual helps us. Because it can help us distinguish between When is renunciation skillful? And when is non-attachment skillful? And this is a significant characteristic in the Zen school, the inquiry of appropriate response.

[65:00]

And this is also the appropriate response, that inquiry. And Dogen says, without the inquiry, the arousing of bodhashin, the mind that's in the process of awakening, isn't sparked. That way we can start to see the mind that has no interest other than just getting to bed. that says, oh my God, we've got to chant the refuges before I get out of here, or whatever. Even that mind, held in awareness, unfolds the Dharma. Renunciation and non-attachment. And then the second mind, in a way we could say, is the mind of samadhi, the mind of constant contact.

[66:10]

And you can see, well, obviously, what I just spoke of supports it. The experiential response to What's happening now? The experiential response to experience the experience that's being experienced. The experiential response to notice, acknowledge, contact, experience. This too is sustaining the intentionality of practice. And this odd paradox, if this is the good me, oh yeah, when I'm being the good me, when I'm being the virtuous me, I endorse that.

[67:22]

And then when I'm being the bad me, I say, to hell with that. I just want what I want. Back to nangakus. The practice cannot be tainted. The notion of good or bad me is just the constructs of the mind. Both minds are available to initiate the process of awakening. So continuous awareness is supported by this approach that doesn't prejudge the mind that arises but is willing to experience. And the more we engage it in that way, interestingly, something in us can start to relax.

[68:39]

The diligent, sincere part of us wants to do it right. And I would say the diligent, sincere part of us wants to be virtuous, inspired, and wholeheartedly dedicated all the time. And then when we're not, sometimes we're quite self-critical. Sometimes we're just disappointed in ourselves. Sometimes we're disillusioned with the practice. the more we can sustain it in relating to any mind and every mind that arises. The sense of practice opens up. The versatility of practice. The Eno asked me the other day, he says, well, how do you think we did in the Parinirvana Sutta?

[69:52]

Sahar Pari Nirvana ceremony and I said, to my mind it's like this. We did pretty great, you know. And we probably made 20 or 30 mistakes. Little things, you know. Maybe that was a half second too soon or a half second too late. Maybe that was... You know, Suzuki Roshi described it as, he said, in the foreground everything's falling out of balance. And in the background there is an imperturbable balance.

[70:54]

Of course our karmic consciousness is constantly relating to what arises. And it enables and supports our practice when skillfully engaged. It's all constructs. No. The teaching of shunyata. This is mere appearance. So we have the mere appearance of form and we have the going beyond the shunyata of this constant process of unfolding. to turn it into emotion we can say that the mother scolds her toddler don't do that it's dangerous and says it in a stern voice but it's in a background of deep

[72:19]

concern about the well-being of the toddler. It's another form of kanno doko. And the challenge in our practice is that in this background of appreciating and respecting our own deep sincerity, we address the particular and think, oh yes, next time I'll remember to do that. If there ever is a next time. The intentionality of addressing the moment thoroughly and wholeheartedly. And it links to Dogen's casting off.

[73:20]

We cast off the construct of the moment, and there's something illuminated for us. And then the next moment arises, and if there's still awareness, it can be experienced more than arising than an unexamined definition of reality. I'll come back to that at a later date. I just want to add in the third one, but I hope you can see that form and emptiness, and emptiness and form, it's one of the pivotal teachings of the Zen School. Modern scholarship amazingly discovered that the Heart Sutra, which in a way all those negations are saying that's mere appearance, that's mere appearance, that's mere... Everything is mere appearance.

[74:37]

It's a construct. Even the notion of practice, even the notion of enlightenment, even the notion of a path. This sutra was... as far as best we know now, written in India. Then it was brought to China. And then in China was inserted and emptiness is form and form is emptiness. Not only is the mere appearance not the whole story, but emptiness is not the whole story either. The interplay. the interplay between the two. I know that all sounds like abstract and maybe a little too heady, but maybe for now to think about it in this way.

[75:42]

To trust and connect to the deep, sincere dedication of your practice, and also to address a particular moment. And I have a particular moment you can address. Each bad lunch on personal day, there's two plates of avocado slices. And as far as I can tell, usually I come 15 or 20 minutes after bag lunch has opened. And in my experiences, there's some green smear on the plate that would let you know once upon a time there was avocados on that plate.

[76:47]

but in the spirit of one body. When you're going to the avocado, you're thinking, I have 40 mouths, and for this one, I'll put this much in, and then for my other mouths, I'll leave it for other people to put in those mouths. The arising of the moment of the individual consciousness. Whether you want to call it collective consciousness, shunyata, or whatever you want, are the one body and many mouths of sangha. It's interesting, now your mind could think, The right thing to do is this.

[77:53]

Take the plate to the dishwasher. After it has been emptied. And you won't see the green seal. Or realize the emptiness of a separate self and don't have a concept of 40 minds, but actually experience. 40 minds, 40 mouths. Because otherwise, we are going to do what you were worried we're going to do. I don't think the sango will practice any other way at this point. Paul said, share the avocados. Oh yeah, he said there's more people here. Let me remember that. And we will follow the authorities of that. What did you say, Lauren?

[79:01]

But this... You make a good point, Jose, but... To go back to renunciation and non-attachment, you know, when we're in such a state... renunciation can be appropriate. When you're in a less clinging and grasping state, non-attachment is more possible. To my mind, the foundation of our practice is shikkantaza. However, if you're just sitting there daydreaming, getting caught in this thought and that thought, I don't think that's shikantaza. I think that's sitting there daydreaming and getting caught in this thought and that thought. That actually arousing shikantaza, enabling shikantaza, realizing shikantaza is a practice.

[80:10]

It has a particularity to it that allows it to blossom into non-attachment and non-conceptualizing. That Yaga-san's think-not-thinking is a practice. And I would say, Jose, that we don't presume. So am I saying it's a necessary precondition to non-attachment that we share the avocado? It sure sounded like it. It does sound like it. I agree. And what I'm saying is something something more challenging that including both, including the notion that this is a mere concept and that even mere concepts have a potency.

[81:19]

And that this is the con of appropriate response, and that the koan of appropriate response, the inquiry of appropriate response, enlivens. Maybe I'll deeply regret having mentioned this. I don't know. Maybe everybody will get all uptight about avocado. But this is our practice. It's a messy business. Well, that's not my experience. But on the other hand, I've never seen the salad bowl when it reaches the tenth person or how far a salad bowl goes. When I was a monk in Thailand...

[82:29]

I stayed in different monasteries, and when you go out begging for food, you line up in seniority, and then you get the food put in. And most of the time, almost all the time, I was a junior monk, and there was about 12 of us. And so sometimes there'd be enough, the food would reach number 9 or 10. And sometimes it would reach number 12. And then in some monasteries, the rule of the land seemed to be, well, that's the luck of the draw. Hang around, someday you'll be more senior. And then in other monasteries, it was like the ethos was the senior monks were aware of how much food we'd collectively got. You know, we'd come back to the monastery, and our bowls were quite big, and the senior monk would like have fold at the top.

[83:34]

And then junior monk, so in those monasteries, they pass all the food down the line. They keep their sure and pass the rest down. So that was one detail. And then we only ate once a day. And by the time it came to eating time, we were pretty eager to eat. And the teacher would act like he'd forgotten that we were there to eat. We'd all be sitting there, you know, staring at the food, you know, and he'd be acting like, oh, did you see that tree over there? It looks good today, doesn't it? And then he'd do that. For me, I don't know if he was watching me or whether this is just the kind of self-absorbed person I am, but just about the time I would think, I just give up.

[84:41]

I just give up completely ever getting to eat. He'd say, okay, let's eat. And we go through that drama pretty much every day. And... And then I left that monastery and I came to Zen Center, San Francisco Zen Center, and I was deeply relieved that there were three meals a day. And then after about a couple of weeks, a month, I stopped eating afternoon. It's a mysterious process. how we work with these things. They stir us and they move us in all sorts of ways. When I was in that system in Thailand, in a deep way I felt deprived.

[85:59]

It was a kind of almost like desperation. Nothing rational, you know, nothing that sophisticated, just kind of desperation. I still remember my first breakfast at city center, and there was a big bowl of lightly roasted whole cashews. And I remember thinking, And a month later, some part of me said, I think I'm not going to eat afternoon. And that's what I did for the next three years, with a few exceptions. My experience is it's a messy process for each one of us and for any one of us to think, oh no, it's so neat and orderly if you do it right.

[87:13]

Maybe, maybe for some people, but I think for most people it's when we look carefully, we sort of confine ourselves. I lost you, but something falls away. The mind's just not interested in something anymore, so it's not like you'll give something up, and yet there's some feeling that something's been kind of renounced, but it's not renounced in a kind of desperate way. Well, if you think literally of the word renunciation, there's an active ingredient in the word.

[88:16]

in the English word. So I was just making a distinguishing between when something falls away. There are times when we decide to do something and it's quite literally just not an issue for us. I'm not going to do that. We have no attachment. There's no deep impulse to do it. that I'm white-knuckling, you know, did not do. Just falling away, you know? And then other times, there is an impulse, and you think, yeah, but I'm not going to go with that. And what I'm saying, Jacqueline, is I completely agree there can be a sense of something almost like lead to rest.

[89:27]

And then I was using my own example where when I saw those cashews, I was so relieved. I felt a conflict, a deep reassurance that I wasn't going to starve. And then, not that long after, I had a whole other kind of attitude to the whole thing. And it wasn't like I am doing this virtuous thing and I'm going to force myself to do it. It was more mysterious. It was more like something that was strongly activated. I think things can be led to rest and we can feel something in us that has let go of an issue. And I think even when we have an issue, working with it.

[90:36]

And then to go the whole way back to the bodhisattva vow, the way I interpret what Dogen's saying there is that when we step out of that whole intrigue and just open to the needs and welfare of others, we're released, you know? Something else blossoms. Okay. Thank you. For more information, visit sfzc.org and click Giving.

[91:44]

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