This podcast is offered by the San Francisco Zen Center on the web at www.sfzz.org. Our public programs are made possible by donations from people like you. Good morning. Once I had the honor and the pleasure of listening to the Dalai Lama conduct a Q&A, question and answers. If you ever get a chance to do such a thing, I suggest you take it. His ordinary demeanor showing flashes of brilliance. You know, it was vast understanding and knowledge of different Buddhist teachings and the jovial manner in which he presents it all.

[01:14]

And in the midst of this Q&A, someone asked him about enlightenment. And his demeanor changed. He became quiet. And then, almost in a muted voice, he said, very difficult. Very, very difficult. So, that's what I'd like to talk about today. Very difficult. Very, very difficult. And yet in a way, if it wasn't very difficult, it wouldn't be any fun. Once you've learned to tie your shoelaces, it's kind of not that interesting.

[02:27]

It's hard to every day find a new challenge, a new discovery, a new awakening, a new insight. In some ways, the first two talks I've given were kind of like to help us all create the capacity, the disposition for the challenge. I remember reading a long time ago, well, ten years, that when we see something,

[03:37]

About 20% of it is the raw data coming in through the retina, you know, sending the message back into the brain. 20% of it is the raw data, and then the other 80% of having a conceptualized description of what's being seen is the neural processing. It used to be in court cases, the gold standard was the eyewitness account. And then we realized, oh, you know, people see all sorts of things. You can have four people see the same thing and have four discreet versions of what was seen. like we say well you know I'm going to put a lot of neural processing into seeing that tree you know it happens what is it we're seeing in a way what we're seeing is the self

[05:05]

that mysterious, ever-changing capacity to create versions of reality. As I've been calling them or interpreting the word kaya, a realm of existence. We take the 20% visual data and we shape it. If you think about it, we give it a spatial dimension. We give it a conceptual identity. We toss in a few associated thoughts and memories, a few adjectives.

[06:14]

framework? Great doubt. No. Is that so? So in the Phukhansa Zengi, after the opening sweep, and yet if there's the slightest discrepancy, the way is as distant as heaven from earth. if the least like or dislike arises, the mind is lost in confusion.

[07:30]

There's a way in which the very act of awareness Consciousness being present and experiencing what's happened is supported, is called forth by renunciation. If the least like or dislike. And you know, and if we're honest with ourselves, we'd settle for the least like or dislike because usually it's clinging and aversion. Very, very difficult. Sometimes the way I think about it is

[08:47]

It's so formidable that without quite negotiating with ourselves, we compromise. Somehow when we're confronted with the inevitable subjectivity of being human, I mean, it's a formidable enough task to quiet down the clamor of our psychological life. I once heard, as probably most of you have heard too, that when Westerners came to practice with the Burmese meditation masters,

[09:59]

The Burmese meditation masters were kind of perplexed. They said, okay, just do this, and then as that settles in, do this, and then as that settles in, do this. And the Western students would come back with the churning of their psychological life, their distresses, their anxieties, their discontent, their fears, their sadnesses. There's self-hatred. Patience, compassion, benevolence, kindness. And ready or not, becomes the challenge of awareness.

[11:19]

And the challenge, when you read the early Buddhist teachings, on the Satipatthana, you know, and the Anapanasati. They're kind of like the companion texts. Anapanasati is the yoga of how to engage the breath and the body that helps release the turmoil of emotional being. Satipatthana points at, illustrates, describes the deliberateness of how a human can engage awareness.

[12:27]

for us as humans to just let that 20% of raw data be the whole story. We're not wired that way. But we can pay attention and we can Notice and acknowledge. Oh, and what adjectives am I adding? Just now I was in my cabin and there was the light, the sunlight was coming through bamboo and creating a kind of picture of shadow, a shadow picture on the white wall. And I thought, how lovely.

[13:40]

What a beautiful image. It was just the shadow of the bamboo in the sunlight. When we start to attend to the experience, we start to see what's being added in. I added in, oh, that would be a nice photograph. Oh. Wouldn't it be nice to photograph and own it? I could own this moment. It would be mine. The fleeting nature of life would have been foiled by creating a permanent momentum.

[14:58]

Shall we berate ourselves for such spontaneous arisings? I would say no. I would say, as it says in the Satipatthana, learn from this experience. Notice how it is. Notice what gets associated with it. Notice what brings it into being. Notice how it passes out of being. Notice what it's like when it's present. And notice what it's like when it's not present. Satipatthana Sutta never says, oh, you shouldn't think that.

[16:04]

You shouldn't look at the shadow of a bamboo on the wall. That's bad. Your mind shouldn't conjure up a notion of beauty. Maybe all these arising associated experiences are our teacher. Maybe they teach us not just the interplay of our own psychological makeup.

[17:07]

Maybe they teach us the five skandas. Maybe they teach us how the data that's taken in through the senses is molded into a kaya, a realm of being. Dugan Zenji says, the enlightened are enlightened about, the translation we use is delusion. I think More, the enlightened are enlightened about the nature of subjective experience. Can we see it?

[18:12]

Can we note it? Can we acknowledge it? Can we learn from it? Oh, and then I tend to get carried off like this. I tend to remember the old pain and that old grievance. Great doubt. What's actually happening? Subjective experience. And what's that? Can you grasp it? Can you own it? Can you photograph it? And then put it in your pocket. And in this world of subjective experience, how do we communicate?

[19:18]

How do we interact? we coexist with the tree, the shadow of the bamboo, with each other. And the Zen master says, start with the place that you were before your parents were born. an absurd proposition. But if we're going to have great doubt, let's thoroughly have great doubt. The translated

[20:33]

into a more manageable proposition. Let's engage the sensate experience. Let's engage the senses. Let's hear the sign of the wind rustling in the trees and then the pitter-patter on the roof of what the trees cast out of their body, onto the roof. There's a story in early Buddhism. Shakyamuni is walking along with a group of monks. And he's stopped by someone coming the other way.

[21:34]

And the person coming the other way says, I've heard about you. You're the Shakyamuni Buddha, right? He says, could you just give me a thumbnail description of your thing, you know, what you guys are about? And Shakyamuni said, yeah, sure. And he says, okay. And he says, here's a thumbnail of the whole thing that we're about. In the seeing, just the seen. In the hearing, just the heard. And according to the story, the guy said, okay, thank you very much, and went on his way. In the seeing, just the seen. In the hearing, just the heard. In the chanting, just the chanting.

[22:37]

In the sensation of sore knees, the sensation of sore knees. In the arising memory, the arising memory. There's something in the process of Letting it return to the elemental, letting it return to this sense-doer experience. And mind is one of the senses in Buddhist way of thinking. However, mind is amazingly quick, you know? physicists will tell us, takes about a sixth of a second to conjure a mental formation.

[23:46]

So traditionally, in the process of Buddhism, we go for the easier senses, the easier ones to make contact with. what's being seen, what's being heard, what's tactile experience, what's palpable, what's being felt. I think of it as a kind of subjective immersion. the basis of Yogacara Buddhism, mind only, consciousness only.

[24:52]

Everything akaya, a realm of codependent existence arising moment after moment. none of it graspable and turned into something permanent. And yet the narrative we create will do exactly that. And if the narrative of creating permanence, of creating self and other, creating a plausible, convincing world according to me.

[25:56]

As Dogen Senji says in Fukunza Senge, when we're hooked on that, heaven and earth are distant. The mind is lost in confusion. It's a never-ending story, the world according to me. Can we return to the elemental? Can we return to the sensation of the inhale in the body? Can we return to that moment when we notice we were caught up in thought, and now there's awareness?

[27:02]

Can we coach ourselves to pause in that moment, notice, feel? How is it? How is the state of mind? How is the posture? How is the breath? In a way, it's a kind of a deconstruction. And then in another way, it's the doorway to letting it be exactly what it is. In the magnificent world of the world, according to me, it can have a kind of poverty to it.

[28:10]

Usually the world, according to me, is much more interesting, much more dramatic and interesting, even if it's painful. It's dramatically painful. So returning to the sense door is a kind of renunciation. Oh, just this. But that thought I was swept away by is so intriguing. Okay, well then, experience intrigue. Which of the senses are intrigued? What's the state of mind of intrigue? When we start to

[29:23]

notice and acknowledge the world is illuminated by great doubt. Is that so? In the language of Zen, this is pivot point. This is how it turns from being an entrenched conditioned existence to an illustration of how to discover a Dharma Gate. An illustration of how not to cling. And I'd like to offer you my version, I don't know whether it's my version of Anapanasati or my version of Shikintasa.

[30:41]

In my mind, they're not different. In many ways we could say the foundation of Shikantaza, the foundation of Zen is the body. Maybe more exactly we could say the breath in the body, or the body breath. And it's similar in the Anapanasati. It says, know the breath, know the breath in the body. Know how the body breath engages the attributes of our physicality, of our physiology.

[31:48]

As several of you have heard me say, more than you'd like to hear, when we let the breath breathe the body, the attributes of breath in the body start to become more evident. When you train yourself to bring awareness to allowing the inhale. One of the exciting discoveries of Western study of physiology is that the sensate experience, experiencing what's happened in the senses, has a remarkably has a positive and beneficial influence on our physiology.

[33:05]

It tends to reduce stress. It tends to settle the mind. It tends to let the body open and function better. Letting the inhale happen. And bringing as much awareness as possible. Being as sensing as possible in that process. Shifting from doing to being. Prajnatara says, I study this sutra hundreds of thousands of times every day.

[34:15]

Letting the breath breathe the body. Discovering what it is to let the inhale happen. to let something in the body open, to let something in the clamor of usual consciousness soften and renounce its attachments to what's going on in that moment. This is great doubt. This is glimpsing the Dharma gate of liberation. This is initiation of enlightenment. We breathe in,

[35:35]

We pause. We breathe out. Not so sure what the we in that sentence is actually saying, but as much as the attribute of inhale is allowing, is receiving, the attribute of exhale is letting go, releasing. Often both can be initiated with a certain kind of attention. We direct the attention

[36:38]

to notice the attributes of inhale and be directed to notice the attributes of exhale. And we do it with a deliberateness, you know? We do it with the demeanor of Shin Shin Ming. The great way is straightforward. The great way is simple. Just avoid picking and choosing. Just return to the sensate. And of course,

[37:40]

going to cause great commotion in your being. But if I just do that, what will happen to me? Where will all the important things that I desire and worry about and get concerned about, what will happen to them all? Because if I don't worry about them and desire them, my whole world will fall apart. Over the years, I've come to think of it like this. We all know that the earth rotates around the sun and as it rotates around its own axis.

[38:46]

And so in any part of the world, the sun comes into view, and after a certain number of ours, goes out of view. We all know that's the science of it. We quite literally often take pleasure in calling it the sunrise. The sun's rising. In our circumstances, it's arising over a cycle. And then it's set somewhere near Esalen, right on the coast. the sky is golden or the sky is pink. It's lovely.

[39:50]

But it's just a story. Maybe we could say, but it's a nice story. Do we have to take ourselves and say, don't ever think that? The facts of it are, the earth is rotating on its axis. Yeah. As we enter the sensate, the world, according to me, starts to become apparent, or more apparent. We sometimes we can marvel at its insistence. Don't ever tell me to stop calling it a sunrise. That's one of the inspirations of my life.

[41:00]

Come and go. When it's a cloudy morning, can you refrain from being mad at the god of weather? we see, can we hold the arisings of our conditioned existence with a certain tenderness, patience, benevolence? And can we return to the basic

[42:15]

sensory information. This is the delicate process of the Mahayana, of the Zen way. Is that so? the breath, engaging the body, discovering the encoded psychosomatic process in our body, discovering the emotional patterns that run through our being.

[43:19]

Can we let them in? Can we let them go? Every breath, a teaching, a challenge, a discovery. And the clamor of mind saying, wait a minute, wait a minute. gotta have a say in this think not thinking okay the emerging thoughts but they don't have to be energized you don't have to follow them let them be you know

[44:25]

a never-ending story. We've all heard some version of this hundreds of times, described in different ways. But here, in the middle of Sasheen, have an opportunity to meet it, to learn from it in ways we haven't learned before. In a way it has the humility of beginner's mind. In a way it has the formidable challenge of the Dalai Lama saying,

[45:29]

Very difficult. Very, very difficult. Sometimes it seems to me we're quite literally hardwired to like and dislike. grasp and push away. What is it to not get lost in that? What is it to not just keep conjuring up stories upon stories

[46:30]

mesmerize us and keep us inside some dream. What is it to wake up? And what are we doing here if it's not waking up? So this day, this windy day. I've heard it said, windy days are not so good for meditation. They tend to stir the mind. The wind tends to stir the mind. Maybe we get a little bit excited, a little bit afraid.

[47:41]

is that wind going to blow our way? I guess we'll find out just the impact of windy days. We'll be living experiments. So all of this that you've heard a hundred times before will you do with it? How will, in the words of Dogen Senji, how will you actualize it? How will you actualize the fundamental point? How will you stay close to it? How will you let it teach you the conditioned nature of your being?

[48:56]

And how will you let it teach you the path of liberation? Surely, those are two things worth exploring, the path of liberation the conditioned nature of your being, the places you get stuck, tripped up, initiate your suffering. How will you save all beings? How will you put an end to endless delusion? Take your pick. Whatever formidable challenge inspires you.

[50:02]

I'd say this to you. Formidable challenges are pretty good. Easy ones, easy challenges, well, the fun's over pretty quick. The formidable ones, they always have more to teach us. 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 sfzc.org and click Giving.

[50:54]

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