Good morning. There's a Sanskrit term. It describes a particular state of consciousness. The Sanskrit is rinda. And it gets translated into Japanese as experienced, concentrated mind or consciousness. And so that's us today, experienced and concentrated. And I say that only half jokingly. You know, in Dante's Inferno, it begins and it says something like, in the middle of life, in the dark forest, the straightforward way was lost.

[01:21]

That part of our mind, that part of our way of navigating our life that thinks it's black and white, good and bad, success and failure, has been challenged enough, turned upside down enough that we're not so convinced. We're not so willing to take it as an assumption. In some ways, the process of shashin is quite straightforward. Do this, then this, then this, then this. And in the midst of this and this and this, our life roars forth its aliveness, you know, with astonishing persistence.

[02:46]

Sometimes we're entranced by it. Sometimes we feel afflicted or tortured by it. And then sometimes that very same consciousness settles down and has a taste of just being what is. Such is the nature of sushin, so be it. The bell rings, stand up, do kinhin, the bell rings, sit down, and be zaza. And somehow, Dogen uses that term vriddha in a fascicle.

[04:02]

He says lots of things about what it's not. It's not the consequence of what happened before. It's not the teaching received now. It's not this kind of practice. It's not just what happens between a student and a teacher. Then actually, he goes on to use that term I mentioned a couple of days ago, kanodoko. He says, kanodoko, that's what it is. A mysterious and mystical communication, interaction. But maybe we can come at it in a more modest way.

[05:23]

The rigors of Shashin have helped us be here. Now the schedule is sort of part of us. It doesn't mean our clamoring has ceased. But it's now, hopefully, there are moments when it's not dictating. Dictating the state of mind, state of emotions, demanding behaviors other than what's arising through the schedule. And in that way, without quite knowing how, how did we get here?

[06:38]

How did I get here? How did I get to the middle of this forest? having arrived here, realize that my plans and agendas are not quite appropriate anymore. And the challenge for us is twofold, but maybe the initial challenge for us is to appreciate The opportunity. Ah, okay. Finally, I can be here. Finally, in an almost casual manner, I can give myself to the rigors of the schedule.

[07:47]

of my memories and my emotions and my concerns are quiet enough that there can be a more insightful involvement in what's coming up. And Dogen Zenji says in that fascicle, Hotsu Bodhashin, he says, This insightful involvement, this is the catalyst, this is the turning that helps us get what practice is about. As he says in many places, it's not what your rational mind comes up with. In fact, he says, if your rational mind comes up with it, then that's not it.

[09:02]

It's definitively not it. I think, in a way, I was saying in the first talk, I was emphasizing, what does practice ask of us? Okay, we have the clamoring of our karmic life. We have our notions as to what proper practice is and isn't. And maybe our agendas and our goals. But what does practice ask of us? And I was suggesting patience.

[10:05]

To stay with what's happening. In particular, because a lot of our karmic arisings have a discomfort or a disease. To stay with it and to turn towards it. discover what is it to be there this is how we experience what's going on rather than have imaginings anticipations and memories and even you know all imputed stories about it even in the moment and it seems to me that just that very process of noticing acknowledging experiencing

[11:39]

Letting something be experienced and registered beyond ideas and opinions. It seems to me this is how vritta, experienced, concentrated mind, arises. And we can notice, you know, we can notice in what we're doing that there seems... to be some almost like intentional option. That in your zaza, it's not simply being crowded by the thoughts and the feelings. equally it's not simply determined concentration on body and breath as an antidote to those thoughts and feelings it's something some way of being other than those starts to emerge

[13:08]

And it's interesting because as it emerges, it's not like what we've learned about sitting, what we've learned about being in the moment proves to be totally incorrect. It's more it becomes nuanced. Intellectually, we could say, it becomes less dualistic. There's less doing this to achieve that or doing this to avoid that. We can see how bringing attention enlivens what's going on in the moment. And directing attention can initiate experience.

[14:15]

Sometimes we see that even though the mind still has a tendency to wander off, that it isn't as energized or as determined as it has been before Sashin. We start to see that abiding has some capability. There is some capability to abide. And then we can start to study the nature of mind. And in that particular fascicle, Dogen says, well, there's three minds.

[15:20]

Citta, Pradaya, and Vrita. The term citta is in Sanskrit. It's multifaceted enough that it can have a variety of meanings. Maybe the most general meaning would be discerning mind. But when discerning mind is energized by karmic constructs, it's creating a world of wanting and avoiding, desiring and avoiding. It's creating a world of good and bad.

[16:23]

But as that mind settles, the discernment settles too. Is that so? As the mind generates a particular image or thought. Is that so? Or understanding? But Dante uses that moment of being lost. letting go of old assumptions as initiating the spiritual journey and I think this is the challenge for us at this part of sushi that we can watch the play of our own being as it unfolds.

[17:26]

We can start to notice the difference between... It's almost like we're being pushed in the back and we're being pushed forward by the karmic agendas of our being. That pushing is not so incessant and it's not so authoritative. We can start to see the arisings and have some space around them. Is that so? I think back to Anne Hildman's poem that I read in the first machine.

[18:37]

I look with uncertainty at all the old choices, beyond the old choices, beyond the old choices for clear-cut answers, into a softer, more permeable aliveness. And Dogen says in his fascicle, and this citta, this discernment, and I would add, as it settles, appreciate, savor, reflect on what's coming up. And it's so interesting, when this state of consciousness is arising for us, all sorts of things become teachings.

[19:51]

The other day I mentioned noticing that someone did something I didn't like, annoyance arose. Is that so? No. How even that can become a teaching? And as it's allowed to arise, we learn, okay, just, that's how it is. A kind of improbable demand that existence appear and fit into

[21:00]

way I wanted and in that moment we can see how that thread of the demands of liking and disliking and wanting the pleasant and wanting to avoid the unpleasant that thread runs through our life the arising of Vrindha, the experienced and concentrated consciousness. And then we can even draw in Yanman's marvelous statement

[22:04]

where he said the medicine and the disease arise together this arising of karmic mind seen for what it is becomes a teaching Young man said, medicine and disease arise together. The whole world is medicine. Every unfolding of your being offers itself as a teaching.

[23:05]

Every unfolding of your being is an opportunity to meet it with this discerning consciousness, thoughtful consciousness, reflective consciousness. Even how... You're engaging Zazen. How is it? What? How is that going? How you're engaging Zazen. Is the mind brightening? Is the mind getting lost in ideas? and memories. Is the mind getting drowsy?

[24:15]

If any of these is a pattern, what's it offering you as a teaching? That the art of our practice is challenging us. If you're derising, are you keeping your eyes open? Keeping your chest up? Might help. These arisings, Then there's one other interesting dharma that helps. Maybe a little bit more subtle, but in another way, it's not.

[25:18]

It's like an example of it that comes to mind. It's form and emptiness, but I'd offer to you in this way. There's a painting by Michelangelo, excuse me, by Leonardo da Vinci, that other great Italian. And it's supposed to be one of his most, it's acclaimed as one of his masterpieces. It's called La Belle Ferraniere. And it's of a young woman. And... I think most of us, when you just look at the painting, the beauty, the freshness, the colors of the painting, of the subject of the painting, are striking, evocative, call forth a

[26:37]

passion in our being and then if you look closely at the painting I haven't seen it in person but I've seen a photograph that was close enough to allow this other perspective if you look at it closely it's about 450 years old and so the oil paints have dried and there's this kind of crackling pattern all over it. It's just an assembly of paints on a canvas that have aged, that have dried and left a maze of little cracks. that in one way the suchness of it is, the emptiness of it is, that it's just a canvas and some very old dried paint.

[27:55]

And then in the other way that we help to co-create, it is this evocative, thing of beauty. And that these two, they're not in opposition, they're in a symbiotic relationship. They help to create and let us appreciate both of them. In a way, we drop the self, we drop the stories of me to be able to see more clearly the stories of me. And like the sixth ancestor when he was eight, we say, but I have eyes, I have ears,

[29:08]

I see a painting. I see a painting of a young woman somewhere around her 20s. I see the brush, the art of a master painter. It's evocative. It's stimulating. both these are true it's not a crime to see beauty it's not a crime to be moved by beauty however it appears and it's instructive to see that it's just the arising phenomena of every moment.

[30:14]

And the challenge for us, how do we allow our own arisings? How do we not translate our practice into some way that we should be thwarting or resisting or suppressing? the flow of our own life, our own life's energy. And yet, as we know only too well, we can get caught up and ensnared inside the world according to me. that allowing, experiencing just as it is-ness, the suchness of the moment, is in many circumstances a natural counterbalance.

[31:24]

So I'd suggest to you, as we move forward in Shishin, trust something about your practice. Trust something about... As Dogen so readily says, When you find yourself where you are, practice occurs, actualizing the fundamental point. To trust that. Sometimes it has the notion, the feel of giving permission. feel of Master Mahas, this very mind is Buddha.

[32:51]

Sometimes we can actually notice what it is to let the senses become enlivened, hearing the signs, seeing the sights. and there is in that a mysterious kind of healing for us it's not that we've figured out the roots of our suffering and we find the appropriate medicine it's more that we're experiencing different ways of being and that those ways of being nurturous in a deep way. This aspect of vrddha, that another translation of those terms, the one that's in particular, the one that's translated as experienced, another translation

[34:13]

as Ta-Nehisi uses is essence or essential. Experiencing the essence. Something in us hungers for that essence. and learning through experience what that is. How do we discover how to let it speak? Let me end by reading again.

[35:17]

Van Hillman's poem. We look with uncertainty beyond the old choices for clear-cut answers to a softer, more permeable aliveness which in every moment, which is every moment at the brink of death. For something new is being born in us if we would light it. We stand at a doorway. awaiting that which comes, daring to be human creatures, vulnerable to the beauty of existence, learning to love. Thank you.

[36:04]

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