This podcast is offered by the San Francisco Zen Center on the web at www.sfzc.org. Our public programs are made possible by donations from people like you. What I'm hoping to do in the last class on this one, coming up before Sashin, is to outline some of the basic notions in Buddhist practice and in Zen practice. Not so much that we all walk away with a bunch of ideas in our head. but we walk away with the sensibility of what the proposition of Zazen is.

[01:06]

It's funny, you'd think, well, don't we all know that? Yeah, exactly. I mean, in some ways, it's a continual learning. Makes me think again of Sojo Rinpoche saying, for 30 years, every time I saw my teacher, I asked him, how do I meditate? So what I want to start off with is just briefly review what I think I said last time. It'll be a startling revelation to you. just to get some feedback from you, you know, as to what registered, what didn't, what maybe I would need to say in a different way, a clearer way.

[02:17]

So the first thing I did was talk about the human condition, right? It's Intrinsically conditioned. That's its nature. That's who we're working with. And then I talked about some core Buddhist concepts. Prajnaparamita. The realization of what is beyond the ideas we have about it. That the ideas we have about it do not define it. It's something beyond that. It's that wisdom beyond wisdom. The essential characteristic of it, shunyata. And then I talked a little bit about how even though right in the early Buddhism there seems to have been the characteristics that stayed consistent

[03:34]

through the development of Buddhist thought, there was an emphasis in early Buddhism. The emphasis in early Buddhism was more in relationship to negation. No fixed self. That the attributes that arise from conditioned existence are not absolute. They are conditioned. As the thinking developed, I was using Thich Nhat Hanh's word, interbeat, that the conditioned nature was the more relevant part rather than what was negated. You think about any situation, you can look at it and say, what's not here? But then a much more interesting question is, what is here?

[04:34]

How is it coming into being? And what happens to it when it's coming to being? So that aspect of shunyata, maybe we could say it has a more positive notion. And then I talked about this term that's come up in Zen. I'm not sure if Dogen coined this or find it elsewhere, Jiji Uzamai, the notion of the samadhi, the continuous contact. That's the translation of samadhi I am offering. Continuous contact with water rises. And water rises is how the conditioned self is experiencing what's happening. And if that's engaged, the term GGU is a variety of translations.

[05:47]

And employed and enjoyed or played with. Somehow, some sense of ease in engaging conditioned self. that notion. I talked a little bit about those translations. I think they're somewhere now. Over there? Okay. So you can look across and compare them. Which is helpful in terms of not getting stuck on one person's language and then thinking that's the definitive word. I was saying Sometimes it's helpful to look at a set of translations and consider how they're all talking about the same thing. Sometimes it's helpful to think about how they're all offering a slightly different take on the same thing.

[06:51]

That's about as far as I got. Any thoughts, any part of that that stuck with you or confused you? Yes? I think you said you were talking about Hinayana practice with Mahayana mind. I quoted Suzuki Roshi. I quoted Suzuki Roshi, so I'm offering my interpretation. of his words, so just to clarify that. And I will elaborate this more. Part of what I'm going to present today is that using this notion of shunyata, you know, that almost all of us come to the practice of Zazen, the practice of being present for what is.

[08:03]

full of thoughts and emotions and together they construct a preoccupation and so there's a certain need in the cultivation of awareness to let go to diminish the preoccupation and this correlates well with the negation side of shunyata. These images, these narratives, these anticipations and memories, they're mere constructs. They're not independent abiding being. So that aspect of emptiness and that being emphasized in the Hinayana and then with Mahi in mind that the interplay of these is the very stuff of human life.

[09:19]

As we let go of the preoccupation and being caught up in them, we can start to see them in Kabataya. So we shift from maybe some kind of emphasis on clearing out to engaging in that engaging interbeing, being part of the spirit of the Mahayana. That's my understanding of that phrase. Can you say a little bit more about this play or pleasure or delight, which goes back to, I think, in your first Dharma talk, where you talked about 50% result, 50% appreciation.

[10:30]

I'm just wondering about this, the delight in play side, which, you know, is a big part of other traditions, Lila, is how we relate to the world in tantric shilism and other traditions. And sometimes and then I think we're given a version of like mere experience, just experience, nothing added, nothing extra. So where are the delight and what is the nature of that delight and pleasure? What does it come from? What's it for? Where does it come from and what's it for? What's the days for it? Thanks. Yes. Because I'm so happy it's you. I want to make sure I don't have it wrong. Well, I think first of all, you know, our preoccupations, a lot of our preoccupations are fueled by are struggling, the ways we suffer, the ways we experience lack or harm or fear or whatever it is.

[11:39]

And as we start to loosen up the bond of that, there is a palpable sense of belief and ease. And I think that's one of the dimensions. the relief and the ease. And then that matures into what you might call a competency. So rather than each time... What was the word you said? Competency. Oh, yeah. So rather than each time that comes up, I get hooked. I repeat the same story that I usually repeat around that and have the same distressed, anxious response that I usually have. And then when we start to see through it, it's like, oh, and look at how that goes, and look at what gets associated. And then it becomes more playful through this competency that it can be seen.

[12:47]

And when we're in that fluidness, it invites kind of appreciation, you know? Even our difficult emotions, when we're not clinging to them, we can appreciate their expression. And that's a very valuable thing to remember. Because usually our difficult emotions are where we're most inclined to get stuck. and stimulate our afflictions. And when we discover how not to grasp them so tightly, but to start to see them and feel them, we start to break down the binary.

[13:53]

Either you can get stuck in it or you can suppress it or push it away. And of course, in this one, there's all the afflictions that it creates. And then in this one, there's a kind of a subtle reification. This is real, and I need to push it away. And this is part of the key component of Shunyutama. This is not real. This is just a construct. And as we discover how not to cling to it in either way, in attraction or aversion, we can start to explore it. And this is one of the key components of GGU Zami, employing. We start to engage and feel the

[14:57]

karmic arisings that come up for us. And then there is a teaching more in the Vajrayana that says as this shunyata is engaged it offers a facility for the paramitas because as we start to see that as we start to see and feel the disposition, the energy, the engagement of afflictions, we start to see skillfulness of bringing in positive attitudes, positive relatedness. And then as we do that, you know, in some of the sutras it says that these are like adornments on the mind. You know, these are attributes for the mind that give it wholesome qualities.

[16:09]

Yes, Richard. So just a construct means it's something I made up in my head. It's irrational. I'll talk about that some. One of the themes I'm going to develop is Buddhist psychology, where it starts in terms of break it into constituent parts. And then as it develops, it talks about, okay, well, how do those parts operate in a functional way? So they sort of shift from mere constructs into a dynamic involvement. But you had a question in that? No, I was going from just a construct to something that's my own irrationality that I think of as temporary. I have confidence that my irrational fear is to go away. So I'm equating this with the phrase you used, just a construct.

[17:22]

Yeah. And then when we look at Yogacara, it offers different categories of construct in part of that dynamic interplay. Continuous contact, is that another way of framing awareness? Yeah, it is. A particular quality of awareness, that it's continuous. And every one of us in this room knows that you're continuing your awareness. And then, first of all, you continue it in a general way. I was sort of present for this period of session. Then you pay a little closer attention and you notice that every two or three seconds...

[18:25]

your mind flickered? Or maybe it didn't flicker. Maybe it went on a complete vacation for five minutes. And then continuous contact. The beat of the contact is more steady and the abiding of the contact is more steady. This is probably a question for much later. but maybe you, like myself, were brought up to ignore your suffering and think about the suffering of the person next to you. So here we are. I was, and I thought it served me well. I was, and I thought it served me well. I grew up in a lot of hardship, but all the focus was on, think of those poor people in Africa, and it served me very well. Souls in purgatory. and the souls in purgatory.

[19:27]

So here we are now dealing with our suffering. Yeah, dealing with our own. We're becoming so confident that we can play with it. We wish. We're playing with it. And once we get there, what do we do with the suffering of the person next to us? What happens then? As we start to deal with our own suffering, what you might call the psychological function of persisting with a separate self starts to be not as persuasive or maybe even necessary. You know, when we have a deep abiding

[20:29]

about our own survival well of course that's going to stimulate a lot of self-concern a lot of self-interest you know and we're going to act out that in contrast to concern about others you know and then as that diminishes concern about others just we notice it when we stop being so busy with ourselves we think oh look That guy over there is suffering. Maybe I could help. Does that become a play as well? A play. I think the joy of being of service. With compassion. I mean... There's a great deal of suffering in the world.

[21:32]

It's not just a play. But the joy of being of service around a man, the angst and futility of trying to save the world, or even hostility. of those terrible people who are causing the suffering. You think of how many wars have been fought in the service of virtue, overcoming evil, the irony of it all, how it actually never quite succeeded in doing it. Yes? How can you help somebody or be sure that the way you're helping is not a construction that you're going to put over a construction to construct a good escaping of yourself?

[22:46]

So what is efficient to say it that way and who can help? Where does it come from? To answer the second question first, as I was saying to James, as the self-concern starts to diminish, the capacity to help arises. I mean, we care. We care about being alive, and the more we drop the separate self, we care about all life. It's just intrinsic to our human existence. The notion, the bodhisattva notion is like sometimes it's called entering the red dust of the world. The world is these constructs.

[23:52]

We collectively... create some sense of good and evil and what should happen and what should not happen and in a whole variety of ways and to enter into that to try to be of service not because we know what should and what should not happen but more to alleviate the suffering What you're saying is much more, in a way, limbic. It's just that you feel it because you're another human being and not much thinking, not much intellect. That's a beautiful way to put it. Just there. Yeah. I mean, not to say that the details are irrelevant, but certainly that's a beautiful way to put it, that notion of the limbic involvement of our collective humanness. Yeah. Well, I'm really sorry I missed your first class.

[24:58]

And I'm intrigued by, I'm very interested in what you said about the positive aspect of Shunyata, the positivity. This summer we had Mark Bloom down here talking about the Mahayanan Hirayasutra and, you know, the likely chant in Emejuku Tanamgyo, Joe Rakuga Joe. Permanence, enjoyment, self, purity, you know, this idea of self. This idea of self that is, you know, like you said, when you take away what isn't, what is happening. Does that resonate with you at all? And would you call it the Tathagadagaba? Or is that going too far? What I call what, the Tathagata Garva? What's happening when you take away, you know, this positive aspect of Shunyata.

[26:01]

When you're not caught, what actually is happening? What do you mean when you take it away? Well, what I thought I heard you say was, you know, the Prajnaparamita is like, what's not happening? Oh, not the Prajnaparamita. The... the emphasis of shunyata in earlier Buddhism. Right. It seems that it emphasizes more the removal or the letting go of fixed views and fixed sense of self. So when you do that... And this interbeing comes later. Yeah, so when you do that, when the interbeing arises, is that self... purity, enjoyment, to kind of resonate with what Jody was saying, asking about to, you know, turning the three marks, entering the red dust as an actualized self.

[27:18]

Self. It would really depend upon what agreement we had about the term self. I mean, usually the self is self-concern and how that creates an identity. I mean, if we start to talk about big self, which I think arises quite organically as this concern of the small self becomes less pressing upon us. Yes. Yeah. Like Jungman saying the whole universe is me. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. So, I don't know. Thank you for indulging me. I'm thinking about the Nirvana Sutra and it talks a lot about the self and it's not talking about the self that's self-concern. Yeah. So, anyway, thank you. Okay. sometimes when I'm sitting, actually really often, I'll have emotions, thoughts, desires come up, and then I'll recite to myself, do not think good or bad, do not administer pros and cons, see all the movements of the conscious mind, the gauging of all thoughts and views.

[28:49]

And I'm wondering if this is an okay way of going about trying to find the front door to Shikantaza, or if this is just fooling myself. If this is like just another one of those thoughts to add to anger, emotions, and desires? And I hope to get to what I consider the grind of that question. But just to keep inquiring my thoughts. We're engaging how we're engaging, and at the same time, are we noticing that? Because once we let it become some kind of, this is it, this is the way you do it, and implying that some other way is not it, we're sort of reifying something.

[29:57]

However we're engaging, But I'll get back to it in another way. I'm hoping as this unfolds that you'll say something more about the meeting of these positive and negative valence attributes. The different ways these positive attributes can present themselves. I'm thinking of the different bodhisattvas. I'm thinking of Bodhidharma. Manjushri, of Lokitasvara, these distinctly different manifestations of what we might call compassion. So I sometimes get concerned when we start talking about positive and negative because we have such conventional views of what those look like. So I'm hoping that there'll be some further unfoldment of the essence of what that is.

[31:00]

Well, if you think back where I was mentioning even our difficult or afflictive emotions, so-called afflictive emotions, as they're engaged with insight, when they're engaged with awareness, they are not simply a further source of affliction. They can actually teach us about liberation. I mean, some of the most helpful insights we can have is when we start to see clearly some psychodynamic within us that we get hooked by a lot and we start to see it clearly and feel it clearly and it's kind of, ah, and that's what goes on. And that feeling gives rise to these kinds of thoughts and these kinds of thoughts and feelings give rise to this kind of response. And that can be liberating for us. But it's both ingredients.

[32:05]

You can't simply say, well, afflictive thoughts are liberating. Because most of the time, by definition, they're not. It's only when they're regarded in a certain way. And that would be a key point in Jiji Uzamai. Given the conditioned nature of human existence, How is it engaged in a liberating life? On the one level, it sounds like you're saying hands and eyes throughout the body. You know, that way in which everything is received and met. And most intimately. On the other level, I'm thinking of Manjishu with his sword and Avalokiteshvara in her receptivity. Mm-hmm. and bodhidharma with his eyelids cut off staring at a wall you know i mean these are all powerful manifestations of what might be interpreted as compassionate way of meeting but in another context some of those things might the fierceness

[33:29]

The compassion is understated, perhaps, but it's there because there's this sort of fierce approach to meeting what arises. You know what I'm asking about. And I tell you, where I intend to take this is to come in through that door of deconstruction and represent that as an implicit component, you know, because right after Dogen in Bendowa, he makes these powerful sweeping statements, you know, it's always, this is the keystone, Jiju Yuzamai is the catalyst and the direct expression of liberation. And then, next paragraph, he goes to Zazen, and then Zazen is quite, I mean, it's terse, but it's quite distinct and it's not an embellishment.

[34:37]

It's more of a kind of direct experiencing. Okay, a few more ideas before we go there. So I was mentioning when I was responding to Richard, this notion. So in early Buddhist psychology, first of all you had what you might call bare attention let's break it down the phenomena you know and then as it developed over several hundred years again as far as we can tell looking back maybe as many as five there was a formulation of and this is still used to this day where you constituents you know that any any state of consciousness any state of mind has different constituents and they're they're called Chaita Seekers say again Chaita Seekers Graham Ross used to say the word was Chaita Seekers anyway

[36:04]

I heard it the other way. And there's either 46 or 52. And these are attributes of mind. And then one kind of Vipassana retreat is that when you get really settled, you become conversant with this list and you just notice what's present in this mind. there's this and there's this there's some awareness there's some shame there's a little bit of agitation there's it and so you're deconstructing self into its constituent parts and then about second century from the time of Christ, whatever we're calling that now, CE, I guess.

[37:09]

There was a sutra called, which, as many of you know, Rab taught on for quite a while, the Sandinya Marjana Sutra. And that was the basis of another kind of Buddhist yoga, the Yogacara School. And then in that, it was more dynamic. and integrative of the parts. And the formulation there was not these constituents. It was, there's essentially three broad categories of consciousness. And one is where we're caught up in a constructed reality. And in that constructed realm, you start to think about something that's going to happen tomorrow. And you think, it's going to be terrible.

[38:15]

And then your mind gets busy in creating how it's going to be terrible and how you feel about it being terrible. And maybe even you want to blame somebody because it's going to be so terrible. That sort of capacity of human consciousness. That can be momentary, persistent. We could conjure up also about the past. The past was terrible. And it was all because of whatever. And the genesis of it is internal. It arises out of the self. Parikalpita, that's called. And that was one category. And then the second category, paritantra, was interactive. Someone frowns at you, and that stimulates a response.

[39:29]

Oh, they don't like me. Well, I don't like them either. So they interact with one. And then the third category was Pari Nishpana, where you see it all. You see that happening. A little bit like the Gigi Yuzama. Oh, look. They frowned. I had this response. And then out of that, I started to create some definition of what is, some story of reality, some sense of me, whatever I did. And so those three categories, and the reason I mentioned is that they're interbeing. They're not just constituent parts, they're more dynamic. and that this arose out of this dynamic aspect of shunita.

[40:41]

And so the awareness And this is where Zen gets its roots, you know, in this school of Shunyata, which is Majanaka. Then Yogacara was the, what you might call, the psychological school expressing it. So that the awareness is dynamic. We're not so much trying to break it down into constituent parts. We're more trying to use a more modern world. We're trying to appreciate the whole gestalt of it, the whole dynamic interplay of it.

[41:48]

And then there's an intriguing and important consideration. And this links back to me in Vandava. Gogan Singh transmits your immunity. you come into this room and you ask what's wrong with this room your experience will communicate will transmit to you the answers to your question no and of course it's also you are part of creating those answers but something is transmitted in relationship to the disposition of That's presented.

[43:00]

And one way we get this arising in Buddhism, there's something called near enemies. And like we can say, dissociation is the near enemy of equanimity. we can say disinterest is the near enemy of... maybe that dissociation and non-attachment or a better connection. And disinterest is the near enemy of equanimity. And this feeds into your question because... Our karmic being has brought us here.

[44:02]

Our karmic conditioning has brought us here. But the request of us is to, in a way, to discover dharmic being. So bad. And that's the notion of providing this sort of Buddhist dharmic context. Engaging in zazen. is not to perpetuate our karmic agendas. It's to help us shift into a dharmic agenda. The dharmic agenda is to wake up. The dharmic agenda is not to fulfill your notions of what you need to be or not be in order to be the person you want yourself to be.

[45:04]

Or your notions of waking up. Well, that would be implicit in that. That would be interwoven with it. And we catch this in the heart circle where it says nothing to obtain. We're not doing zazen to fulfill the karmic notions and agendas that we have about Zaza. And yet, those are the very motivators that brought us to our cushion. Those are the motivators that brought us to the Zen monastery. And then just the same way in the Zen monastery, with our collective commitment, we create what you might call the Dharmic mandala of practice.

[46:06]

We create a structure of interbeing. We don't operate singly for our own self-interest, we operate collectively for our collective interest. The cooks don't just make lunch for themselves, they make lunch for everybody. Thank goodness. And the Benji, and if you saw, don't empty just compost they made. They empty everybody's. So we create the mandala. And then how do we do that as an individual? Cast aside all involvements and cease all affairs. A core intentionality, resolve.

[47:13]

And then here's what I would say. That brings us into the territory. It gets us on our cushion. It gets us starting to relate to what's going on. And then within that, a more intimate involvement. And then this intimate involvement heartens back to what is foundation in early Buddhism. Where you have pasa, contact, vedana, sensation, and then out of that arises some sort of conceptual process.

[48:21]

And the challenge for us in our sitting is that we attend in a way that helps us shift from the karmic agenda to the dharmic agenda. Okay? When we make contact, when we experience the experience, We go beyond the ideas about the experience. That's the challenge. What do I think about this experience? The admonition, the resolve brings us close, the contact, well we can say the contact

[49:30]

creates a non-dual experience beyond our thinking. Yes? What is the way to see what is? I missed the first part of that. What is the way to see what is? That's exactly what I'm trying to describe. That's exactly what I'm trying to describe. What is the way to experience what is, since everything is the mind? So when I have some experiential learning, I write it down so that I won't forget. So that's not a good idea then. Even when I'm writing down, I realize that I'm kind of flattening it because I have to use the language. But still, you know, I want to remember what I've learned.

[50:33]

Here's where I'm going to go with this. The initiating point is precise and particular and it opens up to all existence. And in that vast existence of the Mahayana, all sorts of strategies, all sorts of techniques, and only in the doing of them do we discover what's appropriate. And in terms of... establishing the dharmic disposition in contrast to the karmic disposition. This initiating contact helps create that shift.

[51:38]

So I might be writing it down strongly motivated by fixed ideas that I have. You know? And then what am I doing? I am perpetuating my fixed ideas. Or not. I mean, there's certain writing techniques that are designed to take you beyond your fixed ideas. So in coming back to sense perceptions, Of course, this is still mind, but it's a much less complicated mind than the mind of Parikalpitta, which is filled with a constructed reality. It's less complicated than Paritantra, which is filled with the reality that comes up in relationship to some, what's called,

[52:48]

cause, some event that happened in the immediate environment. And it's interesting because Dogen sitting upright upright posture Or that in Nishiyama, it just says, to achieve this samadhi, the samadhi of Jijuyo Zamai, you must enter through the true gate. And that's what I'm trying to talk about. What is the true gate? Nishijima, erect sitting posture. In the Hinayana, the way experience is unfolded.

[53:58]

Contact, Vedana. Vedana usually is described as feeling, but then we make that synonymous with emotion. But actually, it's more the sensation that happens at contact. It might be easier to call it experience or more accurate to call it experience. And then that will give rise to some perception. That perception will give rise to some conceptualization and that fills in. And so the challenge for us as we start to sit is... that we return to as elemental experiential connection to what is. And this is why often in Zen literature, this is what's emphasized.

[55:20]

This returning to what is. Before rolling out a methodology. Because the methodology is not a goal in itself. Counting your breath is not a goal in itself. It's entering the Dharma gate of experiencing what's happening. And as we sit, you know, and over time, as we all have done, we will have had these moments of experiencing. And they transmitted the Dharma to us.

[56:20]

Not in the realm of ideas, but in the realm of access to experience. So this term in Zen, upright sitting, it's code for what has been accessed through our moments of contact. What has been engaged with awareness in those moments of contact and what has been transmitted. And this is the constant process of upright sitting. We're constantly engaging the physicality of being and learning what it is to be in that realm of physicality.

[57:22]

Our previous sitting has taught us, and we sit down, and this is a process of remembering, which interestingly is the root of the word sati, to remember. Sati. So as we sit down, Remembering the transmission those moments of contact have made in our being. We're remembering that the body is fully capable and always involved in being body. That the breath is always breathing.

[58:26]

that body, that the breath knows more about breathing the body than the mind does. And so the heritage of our tradition is this rediscovery. And that each time we sit down, this initiation is asked of us. This initiation is what opens, as one person calls it here, the true, you enter the true gate of Zazen. Yes.

[59:30]

No distraction, but I do have a question. Okay. So what you're saying, it seems, I mean, would you say this is engaged in the physicality of being might be what Dovin's speaking of when he says, you know, all this does not appear within perception because there's unconstructedness and stillness, it is immediate realization, you know, that this remembering the body, the breath, knowing how to breathe without the mind's involvement is... This unconstructedness that's just sitting there, it's revealing, it's doing its thing. It's activity without us overlaying concepts on it. Yeah. Yes. And we will overlay our concepts on it. Because that's the way we're put together. And... When we realize, when we acknowledge the basic request, then rather than what we overlay on it, defining how we're relating, hopefully we start to see it.

[60:47]

Oh, I want this kind of consequence. I want my mind to be calm. I want my mind to be concentrated. Or to hell with all this, I want to fantasize a little bit. Whatever. And however it comes together. Whether it's your sense of rebellion or your sense of dedication. Why do you put it that way? Put it what way? Rebellion versus dedication. They're all sort of dedicated and rebellious. Not quite. They're not. There's a way... When I say rebellion, I mean that sense of us that just says, I want the world to be the way I want it, and if it isn't, I'm just going to fantasize it that way.

[61:51]

It's a rebellion. In Zen terms, this is the practice of what is. this might just be skillful means and I understand the ultimate place but in my experience sometimes when something arises that seemingly is in the way of just sitting in sensation that kind of a slight cognition of kind of a way of being intimate and playing with it and relating it is maybe a gentle naming of something as a way of including it And then when that happens, it kind of like, it's my experience that it often kind of relaxes and dissolves, you know. And even on the other side, as I'm sitting in silence, a kind of an arising of a conceptual way of naming it in some way, you know, might quietly arise, you know, and how do I, you know, and I want to just include that in without, you know, doing too much with it.

[62:57]

But it does feel as if these kind of quieter, you know, you talk about the hush of meditation, people in the translations, but there's sometimes I feel like, you know, what's the role of that? You know, I don't want to get tight about it, but it feels like a little tiny, some way of including in might be a meaning or something. Right now I was just trying to make a single point, and the single point is... The Dharma gate that initiates satsang. And as I was saying to Bhai, we enter the Dharma gate and then we meet the whole abundance of technique. We meet the whole abundance of technique. This is not to say... Well, he does put it, and it sounds a little bit singular, the true dharma game, but it's initiating.

[64:05]

We are initiating presence, and we are transmitting to being the proposition of presence. which has no fixed attribute. We don't approach it as, and it has to be like this. And then we pick up technique, and then we pick up technique, and hopefully there's awareness with the technique. Oh, I'm engaging this technique. Is this because I have a predetermined notion as to what present should be? The mind should be like this. And this is the exploration of our Zen Zen.

[65:11]

But from the Zen school, we're in alignment with the Heart Sucra. With nothing to attain. We're not attaining calmness. We're not attaining one-pointedness. We're We're waking up. That's the admonition of the Zen school, to wake up to what is. And from that position, you don't mess with anything. Well, I would muddy that a little bit. And I would say, from that position, then you explore. Then you discover. Then you'll engage and learn. from the conditioned nature of your being. I mean, every one of us, we sit down, sit in upright bodily posture. Well, guess what? You've got to do that with the body you have. And you've got to discover as best you can how to do it with the body you have.

[66:15]

And that's an exploration. You can get adamant and say, well, my body is going to do this. Maybe your body can do it and maybe it can't. And if you have this fixed notion about any of these attributes, then you battle with your own being. And then you've sort of shifted agendas. Okay, I'm setting aside waking up to get my body or my mind to do what I wanted to do. Guess what? Your body and your mind are never totally going to do what you want to do. So you can spend the rest of your life on that one. And in the meantime, you've set aside waking up. Just a second. Just remember the word presence.

[67:17]

What came to mind to me was this idea that when we come to the cushion, when we sit down, it's hard to sit Upright. We are, in a sense, presenting ourselves to everything that is there, that presents itself to us. There's this initial moment of presence, representation, something like that. And then we get into, well, if I'm following my breath, am I doing this, am I doing that, et cetera, et cetera. Is there in that idea of presence this... somehow rather trying to, that initial experience or this fundamental experience, just of what presents itself, how I present myself, what is present. Yeah. The presence offers us the gift of being.

[68:26]

in an unhindered and liberated way. And then we see the way our karmic self says, no, thank you. I don't want that. I want something else. And that's what I'm going to be busy doing. But when we see it, then we can start to practice with it. When we don't see it, we're just enacting it And it's defining our engagement. And this is what I'm trying to say. How do we see that with nothing to attain? Because from there, when we see that basic proposition, then the subtle and gross agendas of attaining

[69:28]

will start to be a little bit more evident. And then hopefully we can explore them and engage them skillfully in the service of awakening rather than in the service of meeting their agendas. What you're saying now relates to the question I want to ask about what is the significance of impartial witnessing and an awareness of an impartial witnessing in this process because fully engaging body and mind sometimes sounds rather active. Maybe I'm asking about something that is you're not stating it explicitly because it's just obviously part of this process. It's an interesting question because what I am saying is direct experiencing And it's interesting because direct experiencing and impartial witnessing are not the same thing.

[70:32]

Because Buddha's teaching says there's actually no such thing as impartial witnessing. We are a co-creator. The best we can come up with is pariyushbana, which is we see clearly the conditioned process. We can see our impartial. involvement right so there's this that's a subtle conditioning still that well it varies sometimes it it's blatant and gross and sometimes it's very subtle you know you mean the the way vision operates I mean most of our process around vision happens in the occipital lobe you know the data that comes in is a minor part but We look out there and we think, no, this is not about me, this is what's happening. But it's quite subtle in a way, right?

[71:35]

In contrast to looking out there and then being lost in your thoughts about Hawaii or something. I think what I'm asking is, is the attention to that subtle, impartial, that capacity for a subtle, impartial witnessing important in this process? Because it seems to me like it's that which allows me to see without necessarily getting involved in the afflictions that arise. My understanding is this, that in saying upright bodily posture, the emphasis is on experiencing, that the initiating involvement is experiential. and rather than witnessing. Witnessing has a more subtle sense of separation.

[72:36]

The experience is non doable. It's almost like a knowing maybe because for example if I'm looking and I don't have my glasses on I know that I'm not seeing you so well. So there's this perception, but there's the mind which is subtler than perception. There's also an aspect of the mind which is subtler than perception that tells me I'm not seeing so clearly now. But that's a mental construct, right. Yeah. So, the direct experience of is non-dual the direct experience is the prajnaparamita and it initiates an involvement that as that is

[73:54]

engaged, it helps us, as Nishiyama says, it helps us enter through the Dharma Gate. And this is why direct experience is so challenging for us as human beings, because the karmic is so persistent, enticing. and ever arising. But when the karmic defines ourselves, then we are re-enacting it. And then you may feel like, oh, that was fantastic. Okay, that's your judgment of it, right? Or you may think, oh, that was terrible. can either of those, or both of those experiences, be engaged with awareness?

[75:07]

This is the request of the Dharmaget. So I feel I understand the technique, but it's a concern with the words that are being used. Similar to Christine's question that you said. that direct isn't really direct and non-dual isn't really non-dual. There is an experience and an experiencer in all these cases. There's something constructive. So why do we use the words, not constructive, why do we use the words direct when there's always some conditioning going on there if we're an experiencing being? If we are an experiencing being. Experiencing arises, obviously, because we have the sense organs that can experience. That is... What I'm saying is that that isn't necessarily involving the thought process.

[76:21]

Now, it is, of course, involving consciousness. But it isn't necessarily... Well, maybe you could say it's creating a subtle sense of self, but it's not creating the more karmic sense of self. And by that, I mean that draws in the agendas that we usually... Yes, I understand. There's still these words that... There's all these subtle level constructions, even in our vision. Yeah. We used to see there's other beings perceived. Like, there's... there's still all these constructs that are there, but we're not engaging them as thoughts and as ideas. And I see that difference, but it's still... I think the words that are used generally can confuse, because there's this idea that we're going for something that's not possible. Think about what I was saying.

[77:27]

when I was talking about, in early Buddhism, they were looking for elemental experience. In the Mahayana and in Zazen, what we're looking for is dynamic interplay. This initiating point is the initiating point. Now, does it have the same subtle perception as the formless jhanas. No, it doesn't. And that's fine. It doesn't need to. And I think maybe one last point after you just acknowledge that these words are a bit confusing. Well, you see, and I would take exception way through there because I think they're very helpful. Because in our common experience, You know, in our common experience, our baseline is not the formless jhanas.

[78:36]

In our common experience, there is a difference between hearing a sound and being caught up in our thinking and not hearing a sound. And I think that's a better distinction for us than saying, well, strictly speaking, you need to be in the formless jhanas to have that experience. And strictly speaking, that's correct. But in terms of working with our experience as it is for us, that subtle distinction, I think, doesn't serve us. So that's why I'm happy enough. And then, you know, if we go back to G.G.U. Zammai, Dogen is not saying, you know, he's talking about engaging and appreciating the functioning of the self. He's not saying, and abide singularly in formless jhana where there isn't a single trace.

[79:41]

But Des use the word unconstructed stillness, and the unconstructed part is the part that I'm saying. No, Kaz Tanahashi uses that. It's a difference, you know? And that's why I gave you five translations, so you can go across the page. And I think you'll find that there's a working of unconstructedness there that functions well for us in our everyday society. There's no bottom to this. It does not exclude the formless jaundice. But I'm trying to present something that every one of us can sit down on our cushion and say, okay, what was that?

[80:48]

Get in touch with what is before you start having agendas about it. And if people thought well, then I have to be deeply concentrated before I can do that, I would think I would have done them a disservice if I communicated that. That's why. Okay. Yes? Yeah, I mean, I feel like the problem here, as usual, is the problem of subject and object, right? It's true, as Walker says, we can't directly experience. because the subject is already caught in that. But I felt like Heather's formulation of breathing was so helpful, right? Breathing knows how to breathe without mind and being knows how to be without mind and without subject. So whether the subject is actually directly experiencing or not in that moment is not what matters. What matters is that directly experiencing is happening, right? Is remembered, but it's not remembered by the subject.

[81:53]

It's remembered by itself. That was the point I was trying to make. It can be remembered by the mind, but if it's remembered by how the sensation manifested in the body and the breath, that has a different kind of information for us. When we stop... No. When we do less of engaging with the karmic constructs, when that abates, the fear also abates. Like the sutra says, without any hindrance, there is no fear. I mean, it doesn't happen all at once. But the fear...

[82:54]

abates such that, you know, I can say to my wife, I'm afflicted. You know, and that's just what's happening. I'm afflicted. I'm triggered. Okay, but I don't have to fear it. We don't have to fear it. The fear abates. I think that's pretty enticing too. Okay. When you said you were being of this service, what do you mean by that? But instead of being... Oh, what I was saying was, if I left you with the notion that to make contact, you had to be in a very settled, concentrated state, I would think I'd done you a disservice. The contacting experience can happen, as Nansen said to Joshu, with ordinary mind. And I would also say that in that initiating moment of Zazen, there is a particular opportunity for us because we're in that transitional point.

[84:08]

And it's an important moment to kind of remind ourselves as thoroughly as we can, to orientate ourselves as thoroughly as we can. What is the proposition of Zazen? and then to literally be it, embody it, breathe it. And as I was saying, our previous moments of direct experience If you think about it, if you think about those moments in your life that were particularly powerful and vivid, and then later, other moments can almost recreate them.

[85:17]

In one of the sutras, it sounds like pearls on a string. And time can collapse. You can have a deep experience and it can seem like a vivid reoccurrence of a deep experience that happened years before. So something of that, as we begin to sit letting the embodied experiences find each other. And then, of course, this varies, right? Sometimes the body's tight or the mind is not settled and access is not so easy.

[86:18]

But still, that request... to bring forth that request, to discover, to rediscover what is the request of Zanzen. Okay. I think that's enough. Any closing thoughts, anyone? Yes. So, I'm just curious, it seems like that sense consciousness can arise and there be no cognition of it. Sense consciousness can arise and there's no cognition, there's no thoughts, there's just sense consciousness arising and to me that seems unconstructed because there's no, there's just this, pure is the right word, but there's just sense consciousness. Yeah, and I agree and I also agree with what Walker said.

[87:21]

Well, actually, since consciousness is constructive. And what I was saying was, well, they're both true, and I was trying to address more of what you were saying, rather than saying, okay, well then, the access point is formless jhana, where no form is brought into being, because the mind, the consciousness, is so thoroughly settled. And it is good to look, at those translations and see the words other people use. I agree, I find Kaz's translation provocative and helpful. And so then in the Shishin, what I'm hoping to do is to talk about doing this. It has its own

[88:24]

Yoga, you know, connecting to the body, connecting to contact, to sensation, and letting that, you know, when we talk about following the breathing, we're talking about attention follows sensation. And often what we're doing is mind decides what breath should be and sets about imposing that notion on the experience. That can be helpful in a way, but it leaves open some sense of how that experience should be but it also can create the gap that we're operating from a mental place rather than a sensate place.

[89:33]

And so this is, and I was talking to someone in Dokusan about this recently, and I said, well, after you've explored this about 10,000 times, it starts to become evident what's the differences. What's the difference between Thinking about following the breath and experiencing the sensation with attention. That doesn't have to make any sense to you now. We do it. This is a practice of doing it. Experiential learning happens through experience. We'll have seven days to experience it. I have a question. In the moment of direct experience, sometimes we have breathtaking moments, like when you see a beautiful landscape, in a very brief moment, there's no thought, the mind goes blank.

[90:53]

I wouldn't say that was a direct experience, Is that close to that? Can be. Yeah. I think when we're open, these things just happen. And that's part of the art of Zazen. When we're open, it just happens. When the mind's busy making it happen in its own way, that if you say to yourself, I'm going to have a breathtaking experience. It's pretty much impossible. But when you're open, it happens. And it's the Dharma gate of repose and bliss, as it's commonly translated. And how to get close enough that we can start to discern, trying to manufacture in contrast to

[91:55]

letting something happen. 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, visit sfcc.org and click giving.

[92:23]

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