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. Good morning. Good to see all of you here on our first morning of Shashin. How many people said last night that this was their first Shashin? I have a few folks, this is the first to sheen. You're in the same boat as all the rest of us. We don't know what's going to happen in the next seven days. And I have some ideas of what might happen, but I actually don't know. I remember at Tassajara, several times Paul would tell us to... whatever plans you have for getting through Shashin as far as your strategies, just drop them right now.

[01:01]

So how do we set an intention for approaching a Shashin? I mean, it would be really difficult if we didn't have all of these workout partners in the room, all of these other people to help us, to be here with us. How difficult would it be in an apartment with a regular job and maybe you got off that week and you took a vacation for five days or seven days. And then you decided you were going to get a schedule like what the Eno sent us, a schedule. We have a schedule of when the wake-up bell happens all the way through to the refuges at night. And you and maybe... The walls may be your cat. You're there trying to do Shashin. Period after period, walking around your coffee table with Kenyon, sitting back down on your Zafu.

[02:11]

How difficult is that? We enter into this container together with gratitude. Gratitude. Firstly, for the fact that we have all this support. There are so many places in the world that even if you sit Shashin, you might have two or three people you can find. Oftentimes, it's just one. So we have everyone else here in this room helping us along, helping us get out of bed, knowing that we're going to go to the Zendo, knowing that we have a job today, and that job is going to be supporting other people so that they can sit connecting to other people's practice today. And then the other part of this container that is really interesting, we have the support of all the rest of the sangha, and then we have a surplus of zazen. How difficult is it when you just try to get across town to that one place where you can sit zazen?

[03:24]

Many people... even living in a place that have a temple, can only get to the temple once or twice a week. And they get across town, and they get to the temple, and they have that one period of zazen that they can sit, Thursday morning, Friday evening, that one period of zazen that they can sit. And so they come into that period of zazen, and maybe this applies directly to you, And you know how it is when you can only have that one period of zazen. How focused. It's like, I'm going to do something with this period of zazen. You might even be thinking about that on the train ride over, or in your car, or as you're walking, setting your intention for how I'm going to sit that one period of zazen. And so then you get through the door, you step through with your left foot, you come to your seat, you bow to your seat,

[04:28]

thanking all the people that kept the tradition alive before us. You turn clockwise. You thank everyone who is sitting with you today and supporting your practice by doing a bow of gratitude. Then you sit down on your seat and you've got this one 35-minute period of zazen. And how precious is that 35-minute period of zazen when you've had to do a lot of other things, a lot of planning, just to get to a place where where you can sit one period of zazen. Now the downside of that is it might make you a little bit tight. Because there is not a surplus of zazen. There is just one period of zazen. And you might have to set your intention to open. To be in a place where there is not so much tightness or maybe striving, where you can just let what's happening come forward.

[05:35]

And now the container that we're entering into for the next seven days is the opposite of that container. We have a surplus of zazen. You have many periods each day. And even if you had one period, where maybe you weren't so focused or coming back and bringing your attention back to what's happening now, you've got another one that comes right after that. And another one. And the feeling can be, well, this moment right here, that's not necessarily so important. I've got a lot of zazen coming up. But how is it try on the hat or be in the place of just this one period of zazen what helps fire that for you what brings that back as an intention for you I've heard some people say I think Mel Weitzman said that sometimes he would just sit down and give himself a short zazen instruction

[06:54]

noticed that when I do zazen instruction, the next week, usually my zazen is a little bit better in regard to at least the intention, at least in regard to bringing my attention back to the now. I mean, once you say it out loud, you start to feel it in your body. Okay, I want to align my body. I want three points of contact. I have my behind on the front half of my seat. I have my knees on the ground or my feet shoulder width apart. I have my eyes down at a 45 degree angle. My neck and back are straight. No tension in my shoulders. I'm looking down at a 45 degree angle. Breathing through my nose. Teeth and lips shut. Tongue against the front roof of my mouth. And I take a deep breath and I count in one. And I breathe out and I count in one. And then I've set. the beginning of this period of zazen to unfold and see what happens what is it to only have one period of zazen where we align our body as though this is the one we get today out near all the restrooms we have these little statues little altars that you might notice

[08:18]

And at Tassajara, we have this one altar that's right there by the bathhouse. And it has a gata above it, a little saying. And many times at Tassajara, when I was in a hurry and I needed to take a bath really quickly and get back to something that was incredibly important, I would not want to say the gata. Usually I would. But I have to admit, I didn't do it every single time. And you're supposed to actually go and put your hands on gashow and say the gatha. And then you go into the bathroom. These things are built into temples and have been for a long period of time. These pauses. And what place is there more apparent? of your urgency and your desire to skip over this moment than when you have to use the restroom.

[09:27]

And I think it's very poignant that they're put right there by the restrooms because it brings you back to how much you're skipping through this moment, this period of zazen that is just, I've got more periods of zazen. I've got more moments coming up. I'm just going to very quickly pop into the restroom right here. No, there's a stop. There's a gata. There's a little bow to the altar, bringing yourself back to this moment right here. And so that's the question that I have, is what sets the intention for this next period of zazen for you? What pauses or gatas or little things might you do that are reminders, remembrances? Is it the way that you put your shoes on the rack? As you put them on the rack, both of them together? Oh yes, this. This shoe, these shoes, this rack, my Sangha, all their shoes, coming back to this moment, this body.

[10:31]

Is it your water bottle? Pick it up. You can drink with one hand easily. Water bottles are designed to hold, be held in one hand very easily. What is it to just put the other hand on the bottom of it? to drink water with two hands, giving all your attention to the water. Oh yes, this water. The little gatas that can be in your day as you go through here, because it's not actually one period of zazen. It's not actually one period of kenyan. It's just this moment. Because if we just had one day of shashin, then tomorrow we did something else. Today would still be a today of Shashin. And if we just had one period of Zazen, and we had no more periods of Zazen after our next one, it would still just be one period of Zazen.

[11:35]

But it's not even just one period of Zazen. It's a whole bunch of apparent moments that make up a period of Zazen that are all asking us to come back to this moment. And right now, is the only moment, the apparent moment. It's not actually a distinct little island, an island moment. It's a fluidity that is right here, right now. And so we don't have many periods of zazen coming up. We have a rest of a lifetime of sitting zazen. We have a rest of a lifetime of moments. and they're all just stapled right next to each other in fluid motion. What is it that is going to help you set your intention to come back to the next moment, to come back to the next thing as it arises?

[12:37]

Is it just pausing and having a deep breath of gratitude for the fact that you have all of these workout partners, all of these supporters, to your program, how much harder it would be to be sitting zazen if you were at home in your apartment with your cat walking Kenyon around your coffee table. How much harder is that to stay with it? when something goes off in the other room. Oh, I need to check that thing. Oh, I'm just going to call that person back. I'm just going to look at that thing on my phone. Well, I'm going to pay that bill. Oh, I forgot to do... No. We had to set aside a lot of things in order to be in this place right here supporting each other. And so here we are, what appears to be seven days of Shashin, full of many moments of Zazen, a big surplus of zazen. But all we have is the moment that we're in right now.

[13:40]

And that's all we're going to have for the next seven days. And that's all we're going to have for the rest of our lives. What is it that will bring you back to the moment and what it's asking of you over these next seven days? Good morning. I once went up to Whidbey Island to Siddha Sashin with Harada Roshi. And we had rent, he had, or his group had rented a large house that had like a double living room.

[14:48]

And in one half of the living room was a billiard table or a pool table, I'm not sure which. So we covered it with a white sheet. And we sit in that style, sit facing out. And I could see this pool table. And for a first half day or day or so, it seemed like we were sitting in a large house, the double living room of a large house that had a pool table in one half of it. And then as we kept sitting, it became a zendo. It was a large object in the zendo.

[15:52]

somehow its presence was more palpable than some habitual label. And the space was more present than some habitual way of thinking about it. And this is part of the journey of Sushin. We engage now, we engage, as the Shuso says, this period of Zazen. And that initiates something. It overflows and starts to transform everything. Dogen Zenji says, you can't force it on yourself and it can't force you.

[17:06]

So as the Shu-So says, what is the involvement? What's the intentionality that allows that to unfold? And in our school of Zen, Soto Zen. We traditionally call it Chikan Taza. And in its own formless way, it has quite a particular expression. be everything, and be nothing. Or as Isha Soh was just saying, be the moment, be the flow.

[18:22]

Experience what's arising now. And in the process of experiencing that have maybe a transformative influence. Let the intensity, let the potency, let the particularity of what's arising help to loosen up the fixed patterns of behavior and the conclusions we draw in relationship to them the way our more usual patterning is this experience is taken into the context of the world according to me

[19:31]

and it re-establishes it. So when we give over to it, we're inviting a different unfolding. And in Bendawa, Doga Zenji says, without the engagement, doesn't become apparent. Without the engagement in that experiencing, the habit energies just continue to define reality, define the self, define now, define before, define later. And the way the sign of the grandfather clock is inviting us into experience beyond the idea of time is missed.

[20:51]

It's just a grandfather clock proceeding in a linear fashion. minute after minute, hour after hour. So when we sit down for the one period of Zazen, for the every period of Zazen, when we start Sashin, to remind ourselves as best we can of this proposition, that presence in front of us it's a coin it's a coin in as much as Joshua quoting Shinshen Ming a great way is without difficulty without hindrance just avoid

[22:04]

picking and choosing. But the very stuff of our karmic life is the process of constructing reality. The sign of a car horn. What could be more real? And then we sit And we start to see the urgency of our dramas, the unfinished business psychologically of what we are, of the life we're living, of our version of reality. It just pours forth. Part of the delicate work, especially as we're starting Sashin, part of the delicate work is to not inadvertently set forth on imposing a remedy for being what it is.

[23:21]

This is not the process of Shikantaza. The process of Shikantaza is discovering what is it How is it to experience this arising? How is it to return to experience this? How is it to let this experience that's arising be now? To let it define reality rather than some internal assertion of habitual being. Intellectually, conceptually, it's not that challenging. In one of the other coins that spun off of Joshua saying that and a monk responding, in one response to one of the monks, Joshua says, oh, it's easy to say.

[24:32]

Now manifesting it, that's very challenging. And it's very challenging in two ways. Maybe it's very challenging in endless ways. In some ways, we've woven together our own habitual being with the very process of being alive. It's what defines being alive and it's what sustains being alive. And we miss, in that, we miss, it's what limits being alive. So as we enter into Shashin, as we engage Shashin, we're entering in with this not exactly agenda, not exactly

[25:47]

a goal but an intentionality. The intentionality to engage in a way that facilitates the opening up of now. And we do that in the midst of the persistence of recreating habits, the definitions of self, the definitions of the world according to me. And so often skillfully at the start of Shashin, really begin with an attitude of let me see where I'm at let me watch a note and acknowledge as carefully as I can all the things that are coming up this transition from doing to being is a challenge for us

[27:17]

And so the doing of noticing and acknowledging helps us bridge. And as Shusou was saying, Sashin is just a web of details. A web of doing that invites you into being. that we relate to what Shashin sets up as an agent of being, not a new form simply of doing. Yes, move from here to there because there is where the next

[28:30]

event is going to happen. But don't get ahead of yourself as you're moving from here to there. Be in between here and there. Be nowhere. Be the light shining on the corridor floor. the ambient signs be the random thought that arises about something you forgot to do yesterday be the spontaneous narrative that carries on a conversation Maybe you're not even sure with who.

[29:31]

And as we engage like this, usually it requires both diligence and patience in equal measure. Usually our diligence is linked to either a blatant or a subtle striving. But really what we're looking for is a diligence that has almost a casualness to it. Almost a so what. In its appreciation for now, nothing special. And in that, we get the contrast of how our mind, our consciousness, our psychology, our physiology puts forth its urgencies.

[30:55]

And especially as we're settling into Shishin, notice, acknowledge. on this first day, what particular thoughts or issues of your life will sweep you away into some reverie? Or draw you into an emotional disposition that makes you feel like maybe you shouldn't even be here, you should be somewhere else. Or maybe just makes you lose the thread of what it is to be here and what it is to sit Shishin. Just return. What's happening now?

[32:00]

What's being experienced? The marvelous thing about all of this is that as we engage this process we are attending to the formulations of our own consciousness and there's a kind of a wisdom beyond wisdom that rises up to meet that. It's not a matter of sorting it out, or fixing it, or having a concrete formulation of resolve about what you're going to do in the future. The doubled room, living room, becomes the zendo, just through the process of practice.

[33:17]

pool table transforms into part of the zendon, just through the process of practice. The constructs that we create around me, my life, what I want, what I don't want, they start to become teachings. Sometimes we can even see the arc of that creation. Sometimes we can even see and feel within the workings of our own being, we can feel the emotional, the psychological importance of it and as we do so it both is and isn't it is the arising of the moment it is a potent experience and it's just the arising of the moment

[34:45]

And the next moment is allowed to arise too. And even though just walking mindfully down the corridor, down the hall, is nothing special. It's also the thread of existence that's carrying our life. The timing of the clock. The kitchen crew gas showing and getting ready to leave. This is our life. This is how it is. This is how it takes shape.

[35:51]

This is how it carries itself forward. And when it's invited to just be itself, it's nothing special. And in an utterly paradoxical way, it's also precious. And Dogen Zenji says, echoing the Heart Sutra when this non-dual way of being is allowed to come forth the things that usually upset us hinder us annoy us fill us with desire they don't have the command that they do when we're in our habitual process

[37:00]

A lot of the time they still arise. But they arise more in this interplay of being and non-being. They exist, but they're not the whole story. They're just this moment's story. I would say, for now, notice the stories. If they sweep you away for 10 minutes, acknowledge that. If they carry a relevance that feels like it's reshaping your body, your shoulders tighten, your chest tightens, your mind tightens,

[38:14]

Acknowledge it. Don't in your diligence rush in and fix it. Acknowledge it and invite experiencing it. Usually it's easier to connect with the mind and then connect with the body. Connect with the breath. I would encourage you, especially the first day. Because we can establish the pattern. This kind of steady way of engaging. Try to watch today what happens to your state of consciousness during the work period.

[39:16]

Try to watch today When you finally get a break, what's your agenda? Now I have a break, now I want to, whatever. And can that be a simple kind of acknowledging? No? And if it's not simple, can you notice that too? If you find yourself loading it up with judgment. I want to eat some chocolate I'm so addicted I am just filled with desire all the time hmm can you notice that mind too can we invite anything and everything into awareness

[40:20]

And that process teaches a deep compassion and benevolence for the human condition. Every single one of us is doing our own version of this. Dogen Zenji and Ben Dewey says, and this is how every single Buddha and ancestor realized the path of liberation. This paradox that being human creates our difficulties and being human sets the stage for us realizing liberation. Thank you.

[41:40]

May we fully enjoy the Dharma.

[42:06]

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