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. Good morning. So words most of us have read and heard many times. You should therefore cease from practice based on intellectual understanding, pursuing words, and following after speech and learn the backward step that turns your light inwardly to illuminate self. Body and mind drop away and your original face will be manifest. There's a way in which Shashin wears a stun. It uses us up, what we are, who we are, how we engage the world, what our chosen topics to yearn for, to worry about, to resent, start to become apparent.

[01:24]

this admonition. Instead of turning towards it and engaging it to make sense of it, to figure it out, to feel it, emote it, weave it into our psychological being, to take the backward step, to look at it, to see it, for what it is. I often think that statement, but I'm not yet ready, is close at hand when those poignant issues arise. And who would I read except?

[02:32]

In my mind, the arguers never stop. The skeptic and the amazed. The skeptic and the amazed. Who are your leading characters? in the drama that you're producing. The general and the particular in their uneasy relationship. Then the robin sinks. Then the bulb of the lily becomes the stalk. The stalk opens into a handkerchief of white light. Oh, what is beauty that I should get up at 4 a.m. trying to arrange this thick song? What is beauty that I should bow down in the fields of the world as though someone, somewhere, made it?

[03:41]

What is beauty that I feel it to be so hot-blooded and suggestive, so filled with imperative, beneath the ease of its changes, beneath the leaves and the clouds of its thousand, and again, a thousand opportunities. What is it that helps us turn? What is it that helps us not only start to see the players in our drama, not only start to see the issues that arise that we put on like a well-worn jacket and then act out whatever it is we act out.

[04:55]

What is it not only to see it, but instead of acting out something called the backward step? Not going with the habitual momentum. Not taking the bait. How do we see the difference between getting hooked and resisting getting hooked as an aversion? How do we marvel at the human condition? I sometimes think We have to be the fool.

[06:00]

We have to take the bait, wallow a ride, go through the drama, fall into tragedy, do that a couple of hundred times, and then get a little segue in about it all. Yeah, I could do that. I could do that again. I sort of know where it goes. I've watched that movie a lot. Not a statement of rebuke, resentment, or tragedy. Just isn't the human condition amazing? Isn't this... way that has woven together me, isn't that just amazing?

[07:03]

I'm not yet ready to leap clear, to enter the pristine open field of emptiness, of dependent co-arising, where there is no independent self. But can I relax in the middle what's created can I start to let it be just itself like ordinary mind can I start here with this arising not knowing

[08:26]

where that's going to go, not knowing how that's going to unfold. Maybe I'll end up right next to Mary Oliver's beautiful unfolding lily, or not. As we settle into Shashin, even when the day is cloudy, even when our mind is cloudy, can we carefully nurture a willingness, not a great dramatic vow, more just here it is here I am the body's like this the mind is like this I was reading an early Buddhist text and it was going through in detail how you get from

[09:56]

confused, clinging mind to pristine Buddha mind, nirvana. But whose mind ever moves in a straight line? Whose heart complies the admonition to behave itself. So we open a wide field of awareness. It's a kind of courage. It's a kind of acceptance. of innocence.

[11:03]

It both sets the stage and it culminates the expression of suchness. As we settle into Shashin, ready or not, to start to see what we are. Because the great gift of Shashin is it has started to loosen up the way in which it's usually tightly woven into a single, consistent cloth of being. Me stops to be an entity and starts to be an array of tendencies.

[12:21]

Stops to be an array of tendencies and starts to be momentary particulars. So we soften up, we loosen up, and let the intentionality of practice sustain itself in a less adamant way. We start to see that when you make a big problem, You have a lot of hard work to do. When you make a small problem, you're off to a better start. You start to see, if you don't set about making matters worse, well, it's easier to stay present with what you've got.

[13:33]

Ordinary mind. This morning I woke up and something came to mind quite quickly. And my response was, I don't want to think about that. I've done that. I've been there. I've seen that movie several times and I don't like the ending. And I don't even like the characters in it that much either. And then the thought came to mind, ah, but here it is. cling to it?

[14:44]

Are you going to push it away? Or just let it invite you in to the moment? How thoroughly, how consistently, how patiently, how willingly can we taking that step, that turning. This is the challenge now of this time in Sushi. The marvelous thing about our practice is That as we engage these routines, they become part of our muscle memory.

[15:52]

They become part of our body. There's some way in which almost despite ourselves, we come back into the momentary particulars of the forms. The subtle work there is not to go into a kind of trance. Some place where you can keep some other mental or emotional activity going. what's sunk into our bones, can it be the lattice on which awareness grows?

[16:54]

Can the little details of body, of breath, still be revered and attended to? Now, as you walk from here to there, mindful of walking, can it be more like walking with a good friend whose company you enjoy? And when the activity of mind of psychological issues arise. Okay?

[18:03]

Neither grasping nor rejecting. Simply attending. Remembering that in the mysterious workings of our being re-arising is a voice still saying, you haven't quite listened yet. I'm going to say it again. Hopefully this time you'll really pay attention. But something in the disposition, something in the willingness. Not only is it our impossible vow, but it's also our unending vow. We are engaging without end.

[19:14]

So this too. So as we settle maybe if we want to get fancy we could say refining our effort. But it's a gentle touch. We're not miles away from the moment. We're just an inhale or an exhale. This turning takes a second. That's all. And we support it in a way that's almost shamanistic.

[20:29]

Thoughtless being, unformulated being, is also only a second away. We attend to the sound of the creek before it was called the creek. watched our mind as it loosens up takes that tapestry of signs and see all sorts of images in it mmm it's chanting mmm it's a song mmm there was once

[21:39]

a famous Buddhist writer. And he went on a solitary retreat and there was a creek nearby. And someone came to visit him and he was moving the rocks in the creek. And the person said, why are you moving the rocks? And he says, it keeps playing the star spandled banner. And I wanted to play a different song. You know, this is our... But it's just the act of a shaman entering the natural world and creating a relationship with it and letting something come forth. Unconditioned existence isn't compounded.

[22:42]

It reveals itself. It illuminates itself. Young man said, everybody has the light. Everybody has light. What is that light? What is it that illuminates whatever consciousness and the sign of the creek co-create? And then like a good Zen story, this case 86 of the Blue Cliff Records, nobody says anything. So he says, it's the kitchen and the gate.

[23:48]

It's the everyday stuff we bump into. It's the everyday stuff we engage in. It's the thought that arises when you wake up in the morning. It's the preference that arises in relationship to something. You're glad it's cloudy. You're disappointed it's cloudy. You're relieved it's warmed up. You're sad it's warmed up. You felt more virtuous in the cold it was good for my practice this shamanistic creation just to see it and if your mind wants to

[25:09]

wonderful understandings and conclusions okay just see that too if it pulls up some mysterious shadow on the edge of your awareness okay sometimes they're mysterious shadows on the edge of your awareness teacher with Green Gulch soon after Green Gulch started and she was about 90 but she was made of iron she terrified me and then she said one day she said we're so fragile even a

[26:18]

cloudy day makes us sad. I would listen to her chant. You know, she did an old chanting, and she looked quite frail, but when she chanted, you know, she chanted like a great tiger for hours. It was a lifelong practice. And I often thought, you know, how does frail, elderly woman become a tiger just by chanting. I think that's what terrified me about her. Behind that veneer of an elderly, frail lady was a great tiger waiting to devour me. Our minds are amazing what they can conjure up.

[27:22]

The shamanism we involve in our lives. The way we animate existence. And it animates us. And we miss this amazing event when we go into trance, when we become taken over by the creation, when we turn it into a dream, when we don't hold it in the light. This is our chance now.

[28:38]

This kind of practice. In one way, we keep doing exactly what we're doing, with the same diligence, with the same steadfast intention. But something has a notion that it's something more than just itself in the moment, starts to fall away. Each thing is just itself in its momentary existence. At the heart of each constructed consciousness, just experience, we don't have to diligently try to strip away to get to the pure essence just don't make a fuss about the construct and this interweaving

[30:10]

the momentary and the constructed this interplay the merging of the essence and the particular the sandukai the interplay between them starts to show us illustrate the workings of human consciousness And as we start to see that backdrop of human consciousness, it gives us a context for personal consciousness. We can see the arisings of the self without taking it personally. I woke up and this is coming to mind.

[31:13]

And as it comes to mind and heart, it has a certain complexity. It's compelling with a touch of aversion. And is that it? Is that the end? Or is that momentary awareness going to be taken over by the allure of that topic? Turn the page and see what it says. Take a breath, see what happens to mind now.

[32:20]

Within conditioned existence, discovering liberation. What kind of conditioned existence do we need to have to enable this process? Any kind. I would say we're fortunate that despite ourselves, we have found ourselves in this place at this time under these circumstances. that we have been sitting, that we've been holding the mandala of Sashin together in such a devoted way that it now supports this continuing awareness.

[33:35]

So we stay close. We stay devoted to the particulars. We stay doing what we're doing a little bit softer. Maybe we start to study and see that diligence doesn't require any kind of harshness. Diligence can readily be an act of benevolence. You hold your arising issue. More as an act of compassion than an act of determined eradication of the impure.

[34:53]

Everyone has light. It's pervasive in our experience. How else could we make up all these wonderful stories about it? And then we can take it back to our cushion. And we attend with the CM dedication to body and breath. We attend to the CM exploration and rediscovery of the yogic alignment that supports awareness. But in that dedication, something soft.

[36:09]

And we start to discover this is what the breath has been asking for. This is what the tensions and strains in the body have been asking for. This is what the mind has been asking for. In the sutras, it's tersely called calming. But I would say that's a dangerous notion. Something needs to be calm. I remember seeing a sign once that said, no, I won't be calm.

[37:19]

I'm Latina. I think we all have our share of Latina and Latino. And we all have our share of refusing to be calm. Something in us wants to be alive. So this subtle softening, this permission to allow everything to be watered, it arises to be it informs our effort it informs our engagement it informs our diligence it informs our vow it informs our appreciation

[38:35]

of the path of liberation beyond suffering. So we're at this precious point in Sashin. Can we be here without any notion of anything other than just this This extraordinary way of being that I think none of us could have guessed in our youth this is what we'd be doing. Listening to some lunatic reading Mary Oliver. In honor of that, let me end with her magical way of keeping nature so close to her doorstep and keeping the door always open.

[40:04]

in how lucky we are to be surrounded by 100,000 acres of that very same nature. And where did that frog come from? How did it get here? In my mind, in my mind, in my mind, the arguers never stop. That's a pretty heady claim. Even the best arguers have to stop every now and take a breath or just get tired and need to reconsider so they can argue more. If you watch your mind, you know,

[41:12]

You'll see, even though you might think this is the wildest, craziest mind a human could have, it has moments of calm. Despite yourself, without quite noticing, you're silently looking at a tree. In my mind, the arguers never stop, the skeptic and the amazed. The general and the particular. In their uneasy relationship. Relationships. Then the robin sinks. Then the frog croaks. Then the bulb of the lily becomes a stalk. The stalk opens into a white handkerchief of white light. Oh, what is beauty that I should be up at 4 a.m.

[42:20]

trying to arrange this thick song. What is beauty that you get engrossed in the things you get engrossed in? What is the way of relating, what is the way of appreciating your own being that amazement is closer than rebuke? What is beauty that I get up at 4am trying to arrange this thick song? What is beauty that I should bow down in the field of the world? as though someone, somewhere made it. Bow down in the field of the world.

[43:23]

What is beauty that I would feel, that I would feel it to be so hot-blooded and suggestive, so filled with imperative, beneath the ease of its changes, beneath the leaves and the clouds of its thousand and again thousand. What will you come up with today? Will this be the sweetest day of your life? Will this be the most tormented day of your life? Will this be a nothing special day of your life? Will this be the day that you discover some way of connecting to your being?

[44:43]

It's both honest and diligent and patient and kind. And what will it be? Everybody has a light. Everybody has the capacity to connect, to see the activity 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 sscc.org and click giving.

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