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 thought we could do this morning was go back through what I tried to present in the Shishin. My thoughts are like this. In Shishin, we're sort of inside of something. It's primarily experiential. And then in the class, it's primarily cognitive.

[01:04]

We try to meet the experiential with citta, that aspect of consciousness, not so much to make sense of it, maybe primarily to have it remind us of what practice asks of us and how to look at the experience we've had and we're having both as a teaching on how to respond to that request and what happens in the workings of our own being as we do it. Anyway, that's my thought. And since that's my thought, and actions follow thoughts, that's pretty much what I'm going to try to do. And I do think, in many ways, that's the flavor of our practice.

[02:16]

You know, in some ways you could say, there's the principle. Okay, what is practice? Okay, there's the principle. There's the doing of that principle, which, well, I guess the principle gives rise to the methodology. Okay? What are we going to do? We're going to be as aware as possible. Okay, how do you do that? What techniques, what process do you engage to do that? And then there's the experience of doing it, and then there's the realization, the vriddha. was the word, you know, if you remember that. And I think as we move through the practice period, we sort of move through that process. There's the settling in, there's the getting used to it.

[03:18]

There's the shock of, oh my God, I'm in a practice period. How did that happen? And then there's the remembering of the process, the embodying of the process. It's like experiential learning, a discovery, a rediscovery, and a deepening, all of those going on. And then how all that influences for awareness and what arises in that awareness. So I hope that makes sense. We're in the throes of something, hopefully willingly. Hopefully we are stimulating and inviting that immersion.

[04:24]

And at the same time, tending to it. And I'll say a little bit more about that. So, this morning I got up and, surprising, huh? Somehow the wake-up bell just does that to me. Or actually the first hit of the hand. Before the wake-up bell. I got up. Just wanted to be clear. I got up, went outside with the Jisha, and we offered incense, and then we stand there and wait for the end of the second round before we can take off on the Junda. And this thought came into my head. There's a certain project being proposed at Zen Center, and I had asked Linda for a copy of the proposal.

[05:32]

Dangerous thing to do, you know. And foolishly, she obliged. And then to perpetuate the foolishness, I read it. I guess what arose in my mind in the early morning, standing outside. Yeah, so it arose. And there was the opinions I have about it, the judgments, the emotional context. And then an awareness that I was having thoughts and feelings about that proposal. I was having thoughts and feelings about Zen Center. And I was having thoughts and feelings about... engaging being alive. How do I engage the challenges, the possibilities of being alive?

[06:36]

And they were all sort of twirling around in that moment, in those moments. And in the content, you know, the I must admit, the content was mostly my conclusions. What's more marvelous or tantalizing than our own conclusions? And then seeing myself in that state. This is the kind of, I would say, this is the kind of thing that happens for us at this point in the practice period.

[07:39]

When all that was happening, I didn't feel like, oh my God, look at this state of awareness, it's so fantastic. It's more like, this is kind of annoying being stuck in this thought. And just... taking in the cold air and the night sky and all that. But at this point in the practice period, we're cultivating, we're gathering that capacity. But in the midst of it, it's nothing special. Maybe it's a little even a little bit annoying, you know. Look at this mind, just kind of na-na-na-na-na-na. You get into your thinking and you kind of know your own habits of thinking.

[08:49]

And yet, it's rich. It's a rich opportunity to see the workings of our own being. And I would say to you, don't underestimate the fruits of the practice period, your diligent effort so far. And I would also say... I guess you can't exactly say take advantage. Take advantage of the awareness that arises. Whether it's just seeing some aspect of mind or emotion or the interplay of the two, or how you pick up a particular incident or topic, maybe arising from the immediate situation, maybe

[09:58]

plucked from elsewhere, the past or the future, and how you hold it, how you interact with it. In Shashin and before Shashin, I mentioned this as coming from the mind of emptiness. But somehow words like that give it sort of exotic 13th century Dogon-esque appeal or appearance. And then we can miss the everyday mind that's going on for us all the time. We can overlook

[10:59]

that it has something to teach us. Just the ordinary way you're annoyed by this and delighted by this, the ordinary way you have a sort of habituated approval of that person, an habituated disapproval of that person, or aspects of yourself. One of the attributes of awareness is that as we repeatedly experience with awareness, awareness keeps it fresh. Consciousness without awareness tends to do this marvelous thing of what you might call go into default mode. I've been in the dining room before. I don't need to look at it. I know it. And then it sort of becomes more or less a dream.

[12:04]

Because I'm just relating to what's my impressions, my remembrance. And this room has lost its vibrant presence. And to see them with any experience, even our own internal process, it becomes dreamlike. It becomes insipid. It loses its particularities. But with awareness, it's drawn closer to beginner's mind. It's like, ah, look at this. Look at this pattern of thinking, this pattern of feeling. And that creates, you know, Vrida is described as experienced mind.

[13:08]

And Vrida is different from the mind that has just habituated and now operates from its habituated version of experience. That's more like an internal reference to habit rather than a reference to live experience. Or to put it another way, the more we examine the details of dining room, the more we learn about it. And this is very much essential to our practice. Does that make sense? Or did I lose you about after the first sentence? Got it? Yeah? Yeah? What's that?

[14:14]

So the vridha, the experienced, or the familiarity that comes from being present in the diagram, being present in the zendo, being present with the breath, being present as you delve into the hot plunge. it becomes more intimate. And the intimacy enlivens the experience. And in that enlivened experience, the capacity to see it for what it is. The capacity to see, oh, this thought is about this, this thought is repeating, patterns of concluding that are habituated in my mind, this thought is about approximate, a current way of relating to how I struggle with being alive.

[15:39]

That arises from the capacity to see and feel more exactly. more particularly. And all of that, as it becomes more alive, it becomes more about what is than what I say is. And it becomes more about interbeing. you know, experientially living with the influence of reading that proposal. And as I read it, I thought, ah, I don't like that. Oh, that's, yeah, yeah. And then later, my mind calls it back up. Let's review that.

[16:47]

the interplay of it all, beyond right and wrong, beyond success and failure. That kind of involvement, where the stuff of being starts to present itself more like a koan. What is it to practice with this? And watching the impulse of mind, oh, just feel the colder, just be in your body, whatever. And again, I don't mean to trivialize what is it to practice with it, but to watch and engage with the impulses that arise. And that moment I'm talking about was about, I don't know, three or four hits of the heart, three or four minutes.

[18:01]

And interesting now, if you said to me, what exactly was the content of the thoughts? What conclusion did you arrive at? I could search in there and bring some of them up. But the interesting thing in our practice is that while that's attractive, maybe we could say that's attractive in the world according to me, my opinions, I think we should do this. What fun to think like that. but to attend to the process. And we learn something about the structure of the self as a conditioned, unique being.

[19:08]

We learn something about the structure of concluding and engaging and how that enacts the self or doesn't. We learn something about awareness, the request of presence, the familiarity that enhances the capacity for presence. Coming from the mind of emptiness. And often when I think of Zen practice, I think, especially around koans, this is the territory we're looking at. It's this experiencing what is happening with this kind of consciousness, this kind of awareness.

[20:16]

It's not so busy creating the right, the appropriate consequence as it is opening up with awareness to what's going on. Okay? Thank you. So then how did I present that in Sushin? Well, I started off, and this will be interesting because this will be my version of Sushin, and then you'll be able to say, wow, I wasn't at those talks. I was at an entirely different set of talks. It's fascinating. I started off with young men's

[21:18]

Every day is a good day. And I would say, you know, of course, that khan exhibits the genius of young men. Because it's, you can say, well, it's kind of a trite, superficial statement. You can say, it's an admonition for how you engage. Everything that arises, every day that arises, every experience, every moment is there to be practiced with. It's an opportunity for practice. That was my little anecdote about having thoughts while waiting for the second round to end. And then you can also say that Going beyond fixed ideas reveals every day is a good day.

[22:24]

It was said of young men that this was his genius. In one of the structures of Zen thinking, these three aspects are there. the literal, the interactive, and the going beyond thinking. And it was said of young men that he could always, in his utterances, engage or express all three. So I just thought you'd like to know that. So I started there. And then for each of us to, as we initiate our practice, how do we hold, with what attitude, with what mind are we initiating sushin? And more subtly, how is that mind being related to?

[23:36]

Whether you're approaching sushin with trepidation, excitement, reluctance, enthusiasm. How is that being related to? And knowing, as we all do, from the process of practice, this way in which that which knocks us a little off balance often is more supportive to awareness than that which fits nicely into our fixed notions. It's almost like that's more inclined to affirm the notion of self and reality than we have, whereas that which knocks us a little off balance is a little more challenging. You know, when you're a don, often the painful things are when you conclude, oh, I messed that up.

[24:54]

But often that's where something's being stimulated and the inquiry and the attention picks up. And so that aspect of every day is a good day. the places where you're knocked off balance, the places where you have a difficulty that's not so fluid and equanimous. How to turn towards that with the mind of practice? How to enter Sashim in that way? how to enter this last period of the practice period. The more I teach practice periods, the more I have a sense of the rhythm of the practice period.

[26:00]

And whenever the director stands up at work meeting and says, and I've left a form in the... I left a form to write down where you're going and I think, no, no, no. Let's not even think of the future. Let's abide in the boundless now. So as you recklessly and shamelessly think of the future? How do you hold it, how do you engage it with the mind of practice? How do you watch what gets stimulated? Are you like me with an inclination to resist?

[27:08]

Or is it the gates of freedom? You know, that sense of expansion, ah, I will be able to be me. What a gift. And then when we hold it with awareness, it gives the opportunity of being a teaching. then that becomes like a gift. Oh, I have an opportunity of looking at and engaging and experiencing that mind, that emotion. Finding what is it to practice with that. And that's what I would suggest to you as the call on and the theme for this last time together.

[28:14]

However your mind constructs it, or avoids it, or grasps it, what is it to practice with this? And maybe for you, you want to parse it into What does it tell me about how I look to the future? Does the future save me from the present? Does the future steal the present away from me? Do responsibilities loom larger than moments of appreciation, enjoyment, whatever, fits on the positive side.

[29:22]

And can these questions not be reason or cause for more magnificent conclusions and judgments, which is so tempting to our mind? Can they open up the mind of wonder? In all this, in young men's, every day is a good day. Maybe the sad part of this time in the practice period, especially if you're a Tongario student, I think often, as a Tangario student, the first month or so, you're actually realistically concerned whether you're going to survive. Is this going to kill me?

[30:28]

Or you think, I need to really focus on this, or it will kill me. But at this point, we're all getting a little blasé. Ah, I think I'll survive this. So to stimulate a different motivation, this waning, precious opportunity to see the workings of the Self. burrow down into it a little bit to see how citta can, as Dogen Zenji says, you know, if you remember back when I was rattling on about that Hatsubodashin arising, you know, and he was saying, citta functions as it stimulates and initiates the intention.

[31:37]

In the process, we're always re-examining, re-discovering and making more robust the impulse to practice. And if you think about it just on a practical level, there's so many other impulses coming up for us. So it's just this kind of steady involvement where we make more potent our vow and intention. Nonsense saying tabasso. Which do you beat? The cart of the horse. Well, here we're stimulating the horse, the intention, the motivation. Okay, we have whatever we have left, three weeks, four weeks. 19 days. It was counting. We have 19 days and how many hours?

[32:43]

Not to consider that thought a violation of your pure practice. If that's the thought that arises, that's the thought that arises. But then what happens? And can that be held in awareness? or do you get pulled into it? And then, in relationship to that, I read a poem by Billy Collins, whimsical, and maybe you find it bafflingly irrelevant, but the image of it was taking some state of mind and making a model out of it of balsa wood. I think you have to have grown up with a certain kind of handicrafts to really know balsa wood.

[33:58]

It was part of my childhood. These states of mind, it's almost like they have their own shape. He ends the poem by whimsically saying, and I'll make a model ship of my childhood and I'll float it on the lake. It's a little bit like not taking yourself so seriously or not taking the constructs of your consciousness as something other than just themselves. There is that pattern in my consciousness, how I relate to the future. It tends to take shape like this. And it's beyond good and bad.

[34:58]

It's just the construct of your consciousness. You don't need, maybe, Psychologically you do need, but in the realm of practice you don't need to angrily assert the righteousness of your own taking shape. And you don't need to be deeply ashamed and regretful either. That's how it is. And so every day is a good day. draws us into motion, draws us into engagement. With permission to be what arises and the challenge to not fall into the usual patterns of how it's related to.

[36:01]

And that's a delicate process for us. Permission for it to arise the way it arises and not fall into the usual patterns. And that's where constantly rediscovering the process of practice. Our body always has more to teach us. Upright sitting is something we always have more to learn about. That's how amazing and deep and mysterious the body is. And dissimilarly with the breath. Each time is the time to be a good student, to learn. And this is Dogen saying, okay, there's beating the horse,

[37:09]

What a terrible word. There's working with the horse and there's working with the cart. No. Working with the body. Working with the breath. Working with cultivating the capacity for awareness within the constituents of consciousness. No. Chitta, Hridaya, Vridha. No. Yes, we are imbued with self, but we also have that capacity. We can look at it and say, hmm, yeah? Just engage it with a sort of dispassionate involvement.

[38:12]

And as we're inviting in, at this time, we're recklessly inviting in some demon called the future and some alien realm of being called outside of Tassahara. Why on earth we're doing such things, I don't understand, but we are. And in that reckless being to see the constructs, both as expressions of self and then beyond self. Like Billy Collins' ridiculous notion. What if you made yourself into a little sailboat and sailed it out on a lake? just sets us in and let it all arise in its peculiarity and particularity and just met it with awareness and let it teach you what the self is, let it teach you what the nature of consciousness is, let it teach you how embodying

[39:54]

being facilitates this process. Okay, believe it or not, that's what that ridiculous poem was about. And that's my story, and I'm sticking to it. And then I talked about the cart and the horse. And in particular, Dogen's genius for taking something and you think, oh, well, it's that. And then he takes it and he turns it on its head and says, oh, it's the opposite of that. Oh, okay. And how we can use that notion, that notion of noticing how mind with its habituation constructs its habituated version of reality and its habituated response.

[41:20]

And then what is it to turn it? And if you remember, What I was saying was when the experience of it is more palpable, then it's like the experience turns the self rather than the self defines the experience within its terms and its conclusions are definitive. The self says, this is a bad experience and I'm annoyed. When we start to see an experience in awareness that arising, when we start to see how it's coming into being, this is about the self.

[42:31]

rather than the reality the self creates. Being turned by rather than turning. And how this can be such a helpful notion for us. And again, using citta, if we can remind ourselves, okay, when there's an intense experience, from the point of view of the self, the intensity of our response proves that we're right, proves that this is really reality. If this annoys me this much, it really is real. It just annoys you that much, that's all. And can with citta, can we say, oh, remember, when it annoys me this much, look carefully at being annoyed.

[43:36]

Feel the intensity of annoyance, look at the patterns of thought that arise with it, look at how it influences the body, whether it's contraction. Sorry, Master, I was gonna say, in that situation, is it useful to try and figure out the cause of the annoyance? Like, say, oh, this is like a pattern, then what is causing it? Is that useful? You know, that's a delicate question. It becomes delicate because the tendency to be immersed in it, to be taken hold of by it, and let it become definitive is part of what we're trying to not get hooked by. that kind of using citta to question can enable that. But then we run the risk of getting caught up in that thinking.

[44:46]

Oh, this is really what's happening, or this is the real... So again, in our investigation, every aspect of citta is conditioned. It's a relative truth when we hold it with the interbeing of emptiness. So that was a complicated, obscure response, wasn't it? Maybe I should have just said, Sometimes. Sometimes it's helpful. And maybe the sometimes would say, if you're really cooked by it, that can be helpful. It can loosen up the grasping to the concepts and the constructs of our thinking.

[45:56]

And then can... Can it invite us and support us to kind of let that just be the thoughts that arise? No. And I think maybe the challenge for us is to kind of attend the process. Really, this is the interbeing of shunyata. And in many ways it's the flavor of the Zen school. The flavor of the Zen school is not experience jhana so deeply that consciousness is purified and the self never arises. It's not... Be so immersed in sitting that the Jho Riki and the Wu Wei are so powerful that what arises in consciousness is not just insipid, mere appearance.

[47:17]

It's not just be so disciplined so aligned with the details of sila and shingi that the consciousness is protected from extraneous troublesome thoughts. If you're avoiding, then there's no way for those karmic formations to arise and be engaged in the experience. But to just put it that way, Heather, it's like to do shila a disservice. Shila can be a powerful attribute in our practice. It's like...

[48:22]

our conduct, whereas Nishijima says, observance and the pure conduct of precepts. It does it a disservice to just put it as suppression or something like that. There's more to it. I was just responding to your saying that being so disciplined can actually mean that certain things don't arise. That's what I was responding to. Yes. We could say the near enemy is suppression. that that can that's there and the near enemies also you know this kind of agenda of control but I would say well the flavor of our school the wind of our school is not to depend upon any of them the wind of our school is also to practice with all of them you know They all have their place.

[49:23]

And then the challenge of our school is to discover some kind of competency with them. Concentration has its place. Sila has its place. Energy has its place. But from our school, They're all in the service of awareness and the awareness that cultivates realization. I came to mind that in our experience of everything that we... There's what we keep and then there's what we discard, sort of detritus that we throw out. It's really all that we're keeping. make a little boat out of it, sail it off.

[50:28]

There's something sort of unsatisfying, like, okay, I'm going to make a hierarchy about what's keeping, what I'm going to discard. And so we amass a huge amount of things we throw out. Well, you know, James, I would say that in our unawareness, it's not so much that we throw things out, it's that we're not aware of their impact. And when that impact wasn't held in awareness, it's related to in a different way from when it was. I think the more we practice, the more we see how readily and easily the mind slips into unawareness. And then sometimes we see how what we may have thought we didn't notice or we didn't remember sometimes pops up.

[51:45]

And then you say, oh, how extraordinary consciousness is. I wasn't aware that I remembered that until it suddenly popped up. I think it's not so easy to dismiss things from consciousness, to just say to yourself, don't think of that. Don't remember that. It's always like, such is the complexity of our consciousness. That's always like a good way to remember it. Any other thoughts before I launch into the next piece? Yes?

[52:52]

I have a question when you were talking about how you sort of practice going back and reviewing what happened through the lens of awareness. I think you were talking about your thoughts about the proposal and sort of where it's caught in it and then you sometimes ask and then you say, okay, let's get back to it. Well, what I was trying to say, Joe, was that In that moment, that all came into awareness. It wasn't like then later, upon review. I don't think upon review I could have picked up those details if in the moment I hadn't been able to kind of see them. You know, that's what made them notable. and using the lens, whether it's in the moment or a few seconds after or even a few minutes after. And I'm sometimes worried that that strays into sort of like extreme self-consciousness or almost compulsive reviewing everything that's happened. I think especially here because there's so little happening that like... I'll just be going back over every single thing.

[53:57]

And so I just wonder like... how do you dance with that or practice with that so you're not just constantly sending your whole life to some sort of committee. You find your habits and your flaws in it and then try to fix them. See, and what I would say, what I heard in part of what you were saying was, and I'm starting to see some patterns in my own process. And to note that and let that information inform how you work with awareness. Is it indeed becoming compulsive and overworking past experience? Well, explore it, experiment with it.

[55:01]

One way to do that is when you find yourself doing that, open up to feeling it. What's it like to be revealing? Is there a sense of trying to control? Is there a sense of trying to understand more deeply? Is it an expression of discomfort? And not to say any of those are right or wrong, but just what's going on in this one? Sending it for the review. But in present time awareness, and in present time awareness, we have more capacity... to hold it without conclusion, and to hold it in less of the workings of the self.

[56:16]

This is just an enactment of a habitual pattern I have. Whereas when we do it with awareness, it's less of an enactment of a habitual pattern. And that both supports the awareness And the awareness supports us to not be so caught in the pattern. Because awareness is essentially enabled and enables non-attachment. This is just what it is. It's an activity of non-attachment. I have a question about future thinking. I've been finding myself really... addicted to future thinking recently and I've been trying to when I find that that's what's happening ask what it says about the present moment what's happening in my body if I'm daydreaming about being a hermit maybe I need some time to myself that kind of thing and it seems like a good idea but I wanted to kind of check it out because a lot of things that have seemed like a good

[57:29]

Well, maybe there's some good advice in that, you know. When I examined the consequence, I got more information. I think, as I said to Kim, you know, engaging citta, because it's so powerful, and in some ways so available for us, you know, thinking... is in many ways more accessible than more subtle states of consciousness. It can help us relate. And then the challenge for us is not to get caught up in what it creates. Okay, now I have this conclusion. I like to think of it as like, okay, there's a working hypothesis.

[58:31]

Let's see how that goes. Work with it in experience, just like you said. And then, in experience, I discover this. And I would say that often for us, there's like a mix. Recently I was reading a fascicle by Dogen, and he was making this extraordinary exploration of when we're attending to the experience and when we're attending to the process of processing the experience. And first of all, he said, You can do this, you can attend the experience like 100% and there's no processing.

[59:33]

You can get lost in the processing. Oh, here's my ideas about what was just said and you've cut off hearing the next thing. And then he was saying, and then you can weave them together. And I think that's It's part of what's being proposed in particular. I would say in a Dharma talk, the proposal is be in Zazen, body and mind, and take in what's said. And then in the class, it's more some of that, but then it's also okay to say, well... let's think about this for a minute, you know, like engage citta more. So I would say, in your own exploration, that same kind of process, you know?

[60:38]

And I think often, okay, how does that feel? What's the state of mind? What emotions? How is it in the body? It helps loosen up how we might grasp at the thought process and become convinced by it. It's like the thought process is creating a definition of reality, and that can be informative, but it's not the whole story. And I would say that's the mind of shunyata, that's the mind of interbeing. A definition of reality is being created, and it's not the definition of reality. It's a definition. And that mind is the shōshin. That's the fluid mind.

[61:40]

That's the every day is a good day. And sometimes that's very helpful, especially when we're dealing with afflictive states. when afflictive states are experienced as the only reality there is, well then we've got to get busy fixing it. Because this is the only reality in the race. When it's just what's arising now in its dynamic and its impermanent, then investigate it. Who knows how long it'll be here? So it can have profound impact and consequences for us, that kind of investigation. And I hope some of that made sense. Cecilia, you have a question?

[62:47]

Stand of sin is the idea is to wash the mind. Wash the mind? Wash the mind. Oh, watch the mind. No, watch. No, what? Wash. Wash. Yes, wash. That's what I thought you said. Wash is wash, meaning addressing something, not cutting, but washing is like it fades, and it's there, but it's not something that has more impact. in whatever the mind is, it's not the mind, and it's the mind, and it's not the body and all that. You can get through it when you are, for example, sitting, and it's there, but it's washed. So then you were talking about to see what there is behind some kind of experience. So could it be... okay to see the intention.

[63:59]

So what is it behind all that? What is the intention? What is the intention? It's complicated. Whenever we get to thinking, we're already getting ourselves into trouble. But better that we get into trouble with awareness than without it. First of all, back to wash the mind. It's interesting when you look at Zen lore and you see that what's considered the pivotal contribution of the sixth ancestor was that it's not exactly washing the mind, it's more seeing that the mind is the expression of conditioned existence. And when we see It's an expression of conditioned existence. We see it's a temporary arising and that it doesn't need to be imputed as the reality that has to be washed, fixed or whatever.

[65:20]

And that is what I was saying, which is maybe a little bit complicated idea. When we see it with the mind of interbeing, okay, this is the conditioned arising of now. And here it is. And not so much to see what's behind it as to almost like let it unfold and reveal its constituent parts. That's what I was trying to illustrate, saying, oh, it's beside the hand. And this thought came up, and as it evolved, this became apparent, and this became apparent. In my mind, that's the spatial relationship. It's more of an unfolding than there's something behind.

[66:23]

Does that make sense? It makes sense, but then what is the mind? What is the mind? Is it possible to understand it? Because the mind is not the mind, right? So you could set something like that in Christianity. So is it possible to unfold all this? Of course. Of course, in saying there is all this Abhidharma and all that, that I don't understand nothing. And that's why I'm going maybe in a shortcut. Is it possible to understand or it would be more just what you said at the beginning, that it's to experience it more than understanding? Because the understanding, if I put my mind on a galloping mode, It cannot stop. It doesn't have a stop. Yes, exactly. And I don't know what is the cerebrum, what is the mind, it's very complicated.

[67:25]

So that's why the word that, which is, what is it? You know? So that is, I don't know if I said a question or nothing, but... Well, with awareness, the workings of the mind become a teaching. Now, in Zen we don't advocate conclusions. We advocate being beginners. So we're always in learning mode. We could say, every day is a good day, and then we could say, well, what's happening? What's happening today? What is it to pay attention to? to the unfolding of today? What is it paying attention to the unfolding of this mind? And in Zen, it's a more agnostic position saying the conclusions are just the functioning of mind and we don't hold them as fixed dogmas.

[68:42]

We attend more to the process than the conclusion or the outcome. And so in that way, we are not obligated to have an exhaustive description of what mind is or isn't. Somebody else had their hand up, but I've forgotten. relationship of awareness to time and how does how do these moods actually arise what part of consciousness touches these whatever if I think of the future did you say moods wherever you know like a mood of sadness about the future or for example regret about the past or maybe in the present would you say I'm just

[69:52]

constructing, which is probably not advisable, but unconstructed anyway. Would you say climb the container of awareness or vice versa, or what kind of relationship do they have? And how do they, you know, help? Or how do they create something? Yeah. Well, we could say, and I pretty much have been saying this, any construct that's experienced with awareness can help us because it's a teaching of conditioned existence. It's an illustration. It's an example. And in that regard, it can help. In the teachings of Zen, and I would extend it to Buddhism, time is a construct. It's a way of relating to experience that helps us create a spatial temporal reality.

[71:07]

No, as a construct it has a subjective reality. And that subjective reality can also be not just individual, but also collective. And its relationship to awareness? It's just awareness becomes aware of it as we construct it by thought? Awareness has the potential to become aware of it, but it's very interesting because in some ways It's so ingrained an assumption and a subjective experience. You know, if you think when I was talking about the earth going round the sun and the sun going round the earth, the sun going round the earth, while it doesn't make sense to our rational mind, our subjective experience seems in accord with that description of reality.

[72:18]

And we could say, similarly, our subjective experience of time is in accord with time being a linear, progressive event. Just one last thing, I don't want to take all the time, please. Does time have an objective existence? And that's what I was saying, it doesn't. And one of the great ways to experience that is when we're sitting in Zazen and we're in a lot of physical or mental distress, and we're desperately waiting for the bell to ring, that last five minutes lasts about three months. And when we're sitting in Zazen and the strong connection to now, the experience of time is quite different. And I would say everybody in this room

[73:19]

has had a version of that multiple times. And that's the subjective nature of time. But usually we dismiss it as a mere aberration and that this linear time is what's real. So this is a fairly practical question about the distinction that you make between seeing what's behind an experience and allowing it to unfold in its constituent part. So you're standing by the hand, you're re-engaging the question of this project that you've been reading about. Actually, it came up unbidden. It was not intentional. Okay, so we'll use my example. Let's say I was engaging in some future thinking this morning. Intentionally or unintentionally. This is important.

[74:21]

Thank you. I would prefer not to be going in that direction right now. In fact, I wish that time was so non-objective in its reality that it would run backwards and we would have 60-something days left. So when you say, I understand that my job in that moment, when I become aware, oh, crap, I'm future thinking. What says crap stuff? No, right. That's okay. So that's already the first problem, right? Is, uh, you know, the tanto said, um, don't, you know, don't get carried away with all that future thinking. But my question is what beyond saying in this moment, future thinking, or in your case, project obsession, What do we need to do in terms of unfolding in its constituent parts beyond noticing that we're engaged in a mind activity that has now been noticed by awareness?

[75:22]

Can we walk away once awareness has gone, oh, future thinking, or oh, there's that report again, whack, goes on. I mean, how much unfolding is... Is this just an investigation that we each have to engage in? Can we? Well, sometimes we can and sometimes we can't. The admonition we're offered, and the Tundra said, don't get caught. Implicit in that statement is not Suppress. Instead of getting caught, suppress. Obviously, whether we grasp it or suppress it, in some ways we're affirming its reality. And the challenge of interbeing is can we experience it as the play of conditioned existence?

[76:36]

delicate though, because I've been using the same redirect that you used, right? You said, and then I, you know, you said something about becoming aware of the cold air. I did. Right? Which is a redirect to sensory experience from cognitive spinning, poking, you called it earlier. I confess to my own aberrant behavior. But that's my question, is that aberrant behavior? Is that... To what extent does that constitute repression if I open my ears and think, are there any crickets this morning? Which does stop the future thinking dead in its tracks for a moment. And you know, when I was answering Karmic's question, you know, quoting this other place where Dogen is saying, directing experience... and receptive experience can support each other. If the mind is getting all caught up inside the story and the story is feeding itself and the grasping is getting stronger, then what's the process for loosening that up?

[78:00]

What's the process for returning to open awareness? And then, what is it to practice with this? Which is a different question from something bad is happening and something good should happen. It's like... my notes. It's about Dogen's famous quote from Nangaku where he says it's not that there's no practice and to shift the language a little bit is that practice is not duality. It's not like practicing helps define good and bad and what you're supposed to succeed at and what you're supposed to avoid.

[79:06]

You see, that's not it. But it's not that there's no practice. But it's not. It's about opening up to what is. And in the process of opening up to what is, we're literally discovering and realizing the path of liberation. Our practice isn't to be so formidable that it crushes the conditioned nature. Our practice is to wake up to it and the mind is no hindrance. The bodhisattva realizes prajnaparamita and the mind is no hindrance. And there it is what it is. Let's let someone else just, I'll come back. Another term for what you're saying that is used in Buddhism is just acceptance. Acceptance that all this is conditioned, this is all my past karma, and that's just where we are now, and let's just go from here.

[80:10]

And there's a lightness when you talk about this. Like when you said to Jody, you just said, what's this old trap? And you said, and the Billy Collins poems that you quote, there's a lightness that, oh, it's an acceptance, I suppose. Yeah. Yeah. Acceptance, just a second. So I'm thinking of people who I have habituated that memory, and it really appears like the person is doing the same thing again and again and again. What does it mean to kind of interact with somebody with this mind where you don't see them as doing the same thing again and again and again? But isn't that a juicy question? What is this, you know... When you have like an ingrained sense of, oh, well, with this person we always go through this same kind of piece of theater. And we've rehearsed it and enacted it so often.

[81:13]

It's like we just move right into it. And then why is it to not do that? Or why is it to see it for what it is as it's happening? What is it to practice with it? What is it to rouse way-seeking mind in the midst of what seems to be a deeply conditioned response? And can that question become potent? And what I was saying earlier, the challenge for us is, can that question become potent? because the impulse to repeat the habitual pattern is often potent. And there's a deep workings in us in responding to the request of practice, which is enabling...

[82:23]

this deep involvement in practice, you know, that it's... that it makes its relevance is thoroughgoing for us. more so than the attraction of a particular conditioned pattern. So there's an attraction to go back into the repeated way of enacting with someone else. And then what is it to practice with that? And can that question, to be a little bit theatrical, can that question have a thunderous silence and a thunderous request.

[83:28]

What is it to practice with this? What is it to discover in the midst of conditioned existence the door of liberation? And when we get into that kind of thing, it's like, okay then, let's go for it. Let's have this dangerous interaction where we tend to fall into our habitual patterns. And let's see is it possible to discover awareness in the midst of it. And when we have that intent, the karmic agendas are not so dominant. And this is the wind, this is the expression of effort in the Zen school.

[84:40]

What is it to practice with this arising? And of course, when it's put like that, it sounds like... well, it's all in the mind, it's all in the realm of... No, it's... Actually, that's just the initiating point. The challenge is to live the engagement of that question as thoroughly as possible. And as I said earlier, the challenging situations often have more to teach us than the comfortable ones. You know, comfortable ones, oh, look, everything's working just fine. Great. I'll just relax and cruise. You know, the challenging ones, like, wait a minute. What did that person just say to me? And why am I having these awkward, disturbing feelings? I've got something to...

[85:45]

Okay. So you talked about the mind of emptiness and you talked about interbeing. Are those two ways of talking about the same thing? Or for you, is there any difference in your experience of them? Is there any difference? I was using them as synonymous. I was also using the... I put a preposition in there, coming from... I don't know if you've ever looked at those wonderful teachings that talk about coming from and going to, and going to, coming from. It's a little bit like how reality is parsed out in Hawaiian philosophy.

[86:49]

flavors of samadhi that Dogen talks about is the samadhi of play. It's in there. It's on the list. Like little kids, when they're playing, they're really absorbed. They're really into what they're doing, but it's play. So I think, you know, when we're caught, you know, don't get caught. Well, one Dharma door, okay, play with it. How do we, like, there's a Shosan ceremony, and your question's all ready, and you come up there, and then the teacher asks a question. So there's like the whole scripted

[87:49]

thing, and then there's improv. So with full attention, with full awareness, play with it. It's not suppressing, it's not obsession. I hesitate to use that word, and here's why. I think in a way it's a little precocious. That which challenges is actually more accessible than that which seems easily accommodated and play seems to be, oh yeah, I've got this all figured out and I'm just cruising. Not to say we don't have those moments. And certainly my understanding of Jiju Yuzamai is that indeed Dogen is proposing an element of fluidity and play.

[89:02]

But my hesitancy is about not so much to wallow in the negative, as it is to kind of have a kindly consideration for the elements of the human condition that we're inclined to struggle with so that they're included in the realm of practice rather than excluded. I mean, that's my experience, is that... there's an inclination to set something outside. Oh, when I'm practicing well, I'm like this. And when I'm not practicing well, I'm like that. And so my inclination is to say, well, let's cultivate the proposition that it's all practice.

[90:16]

And then when play arises, when ease arises, huh? Wonderful. Yeah, I'm just kind of putting it forward as a sort of, that's the Dharma door, when stuckness arises. Nice work if you can get it, you know? for my own experience a more accessible approach is what's going on you know and then what's going on and what is it to practice with it and for me that's more where the challenges are those are more accessible and not to say

[91:18]

fluidity and flowing, I do think. I mean, I think we collectively experience it. My experience is sometimes at work meeting. We're just enjoying hanging out in the sun and we're creating. Sometimes the work leader's chagrin. We're creating something to say. And I think of that as a kind of part of the joy of practicing together. So play is there. But that's my motivation. That's my scheming. It's like... all-inclusive practice, you know, everything's included. Yes?

[92:21]

Okay. Okay, so, an example. Sitting on the cushion, finding a deep and abiding fear, spending a lot of time looking at that during the period of Zazen. At the end of the period of Zazen, I know that the fear is transitory and it's going to go away. but it's deeply, deeply uncomfortable while it's there. To Jody's point, is there a space for, and even to the pontiff's point, is there a space to consciously direct to something else, to say, practicing my calligraphy so that I can get deeply into the calligraphy, and I know that the fear is going to go away, and I know that I've been looking at it, but I'm just... I'm at my end, I don't want to deal with it right now. Can I just find a different thing to occupy my mind? I think this notion of what is the practice with it is a significant one.

[93:38]

And then within it, there's a certain pragmatism. If it can be seen, if it can be seen as the ephemeral conditioned arising of the moment, then it's going to last moments. If it's there for a whole period of zazhyam, that's a long time. There's a lot of grasping. There's something very alluring for the self in that process, in that experiencing. And it would seem to indicate a more proactive response than just bare awareness and maybe going to an antidote.

[94:39]

What's the antidote to fear? And the antidote to fear is about potential or possibility to come back to now, to invite into now a stabilization, a generous comforting involvement. and that could be done with loving-kindness or other things. So is there a time when antidotes are appropriate? Yes, there is. Certainly in the theme of this class I've been emphasizing what is it to practice with it, but not to say that that awareness is the only practice. but just to say that even within what is it to practice with, it opens up the array of things we know in terms of skillful practice.

[95:52]

Sometimes a conscious choice to direct attention elsewhere can be what it is to practice with. Exactly. Sure. Okay, one last question. I know you have... Okay. But it goes something like And then, after a while, it goes, no eyes, no ears, no nose, no nothing. Yep. I think I've heard that one, yeah. So that's very interesting because that's who we are, right? That's whatever it's called. Whatever it's called, that's who we are. And that's the aim. the practice whatever that's the way I maybe I'm wrong please correct me so this most all of it it's like an illusion like a dream that it's construction or whatever and I don't know why it comes when it comes that I don't understand so I I think that when some master said washing the mind means

[97:13]

You see it. You live it. That's your story. That's my story. That's to be human, right? To have that story. We always have a story when we sit in the cushion. So, it's not that we are going to forget that. Because it's there. Our body is in principle. Or it's mine. So, how do we... Wouldn't it be to remind... Because we read every day those things. That is are telling us who we are. And then this ego mind is like in the middle of it. That's the way I experience it. So the intention would be better to go directly. That's a direct cut or a direct boom. A breakthrough. So how do you do that if we are analyzing the mind that doesn't exist? Maybe I'm wrong.

[98:16]

Well, I think what you're doing is in the process of using words and ideas, it can seem like I'm saying our practice, the totality of our practice is words and ideas. But actually what I'm trying to say is I'm offering words and ideas about experiential practice. And of course, that's its own peculiar proposition. But I'm not simply advocating a process of analyzing. To my mind, there's a difference, and I've been trying to illustrate it and elucidate it, a difference between analyzing with the mind, and being available for an unfolding process of awareness.

[99:18]

We'll end with you, Miles. That's kind of my question, and I don't know if this will make sense, but in my experience there's the body and the mind, and there's sort of self, themselves, and then there's, in a sense, an awareness that sort of has no self, it is boundless. that sometimes when I think I'm having an awareness and it comes up with a judgment, it's like a red herring. It's still selfing. This is good. This is bad. But there are parts where just an awareness comes up where there's a curiosity of behavior. There's a better understanding of behavior. Does this awareness have no selfing? I mean, is that in a sense a key into what is truly happening? Not to say that Sheila won't come up with that. and give sort of an inner being sense of decorum, but that it's not mild to something. That there's this little self that... Does that make sense?

[100:23]

Sort of. We could say this. We could say that the activity of awareness is... beyond conceptualization. Dogen puts it in these terms. He says, when there isn't a self-defining reality, when what's happening, which is experienced by awareness, when that comes forth, it creates an experience of reality that's beyond self. And that's why I was saying, you know, earlier I was using this notion of when that experience comes forth, it turns the self. Rather than the self-defining reality, the self is defined by reality.

[101:28]

And that's one of Dogen's key phrases. Something is created by awareness and then Do we conceptualize it? Do we judge it? Do we draw conclusions from it? That's why it's a continuous practice, because we can do that in a fraction of a second. And so the process is to continually aware, aware, aware. And what I've been trying to illustrate today in the service of this period, in the service of the context that this is the last 19 days, as the Eno so terribly said, asserting linear time.

[102:34]

that in this period of time that we are collectively constructing, what is that helpful and skillful engagement of our practice? And my strategy has been to say, don't grasp it, don't resist it, bring awareness to it, however it is. And actually, have that as an intentional disposition and engagement. And then I would add that that offers us the potential not only to know more thoroughly the workings of our conditioned self, but also to have have the capacity to sustain awareness in a more active sense of self.

[103:48]

It's coming up more. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for listening to this podcast offered by the San Francisco Zen Center. Our Dharma Talks are offered free of charge, and this is made possible by the donations we receive. Your financial support helps us to continue to offer the Dharma. For more information, visit sfcc.org and click Giving.

[104:22]

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