Good morning. So day night. You know, one of the true precious gifts of leading a Shashin and doing Dokusans is bearing witness and participating in the process of each person's practice as they go through the intensity of Shashin. For some people it's about settling deeply, studying the subtle details of concentration.

[01:15]

For some people it's about meeting the difficulties that arise in their psychological makeup. For some people it's the interface between the karma and the dharma. Some find the forms cumbersome and unappealing. Some find them inspiring and deeply supportive. Some come to Doka-san wide open and utterly trusting.

[02:21]

Some come intimidated or hesitant. This stuff of human life. And then in some ways, we've all got something of all of that. Maybe we have more of one than the other on a particular day. But we've all got some of that. And then there's a great coin, you know. What is at the very heart of this practice? In this machine, I've been emphasizing, in a way, I hope, a way that was palpable energy.

[03:39]

singularly and collectively. There's something... Through the experiences and the training I've had, there's something valuable in sitting there and roaring like Kanseyan, in a kind of reckless abandon that it as Dogen Zenji would say it reverberates out and enlightens everything and comes back to us there's something about how the body the breath the complete giving to the experience of the moment as a singular practice and a collective practice helps to shake loose the ways we can climp, the ways we can sink into

[05:05]

dense thoughts and emotions. The ways in which we can sink into a density of physicality that becomes solid. That we can pour forth with reckless abandon and then stop. taste something of that which arises then. And discover that something similar is available. Something similar is requested. Something similar is offered in each and every activity of our practice.

[06:09]

That every activity offers itself for that form of engagement. And how does that translate into Zazak? How do each one of the many minds and heart, of the many minds and hearts that participate, that participate in Sashin, how do they negotiate the way? So this morning we did our ceremony to Bodhidharma.

[07:42]

It always strikes me as curious that the upholder, the finder of our tradition may or may not have existed. You would think at least we'd tag on to somebody who we knew existed. I mean, is it that hard to find somebody? To me, it really is a curious notion. Of all the great sages and teachers and enlightened persons, we pick somebody who maybe just never did exist. teachings attributed to him, which ones did really come from that person.

[08:47]

Andy Ferguson, who was a Chinese scholar and adventurer and explorer of Zen in China, for a long time was just accepted that, of course, Bodhidharma must exist. He has to exist. He's the guy that started the whole thing. Then more research was done, and then it came up. It's like, well, it's starting to look like it's a good possibility he didn't, that actually two or three people's lives were sort of conflated into one, and then that person was burnished up a little bit, you know, tossed off his eyelids and given a permanent scowl. Which, if you think about it, is also kind of amazing.

[09:52]

First of all, we make up our own leader, our own icon, and then we give it those kind of attributes. I'm like, why doesn't he have a big, friendly smut? or other things, you know, like an angelic look, you know. But no, he has to look a little grumpy, deadly serious, and wide awake. And his latest thinking of the last two, three years He got very excited about three years ago when he discovered what he thinks was the practice place that Bodhidharma practiced in. Ironically enough now, a nondescript little temple out in the middle of nowhere that nobody's interested in.

[11:00]

And there it sits, and Andy is quite a scholar in this field and has done enormous, unending research. and says, you know, there's really good reason to believe this is where Bodhidharma practiced. So, maybe in fact we do have a leader, a finder. How illustrious he was, well, aren't we all illustrious? Has the Dharma ever said anything other than, here's the proposition, please practice with it, taste it, hear it, see it, discover it for yourself in the realm of your own experience.

[12:09]

Don't take someone else's word for it. So maybe it's good, our finder is kind of a little sketchy as to whether he existed and a little kind of like in need of some personality improvement. We won't be so tempted to idolize him. In the reading read by the tanto this morning, the essence of the way is detachment. I don't know what your mind did with that, but my mind immediately took out the word detachment and put in the word, did you do that too? Put in the word non-attachment.

[13:19]

The distinction being to detach is to separate from, is to disconnect, to detach. Whereas non-attachment is to not get attached, to not get grasped and clinked. Maybe a semantic convention, but in some ways points to the core dilemma, the core challenge of our practice. Are we trying to detach from what we are? Or what? And if we're trying to non-attach, how does that come about? The great gift the rigor of Shashin gives us is that it helps us see how thoroughly we're invested in the world according to me, how thoroughly we're invested in what we like and what we don't like, what we want and what we want to avoid.

[14:54]

And as Hashin asks us to hold the here and now, wonderfully, our investment in there and then starts to dissipate. Not without protest. Not without hesitation. Not without resistance. Not without complaint. Not without some turmoil. coming out out of our being. I thought Merwin's poem from yesterday, in particular, when he turns to this phrase, I must be led by what was given to me. I must be led by what was given to me.

[16:04]

The great gift of Chinese that we don't have in English is the absence of personal pronouns. You know, we think, you know, as we read it, as the Xu So read, you know, and Bodhidharma said, I don't know. Well, actually, in Chinese, there's no personal pronoun. So he didn't say that. If he did exist, And if he did talk to the emperor, and he wasn't even speaking in English. By the way, Andy's story is that he did actually have a meeting with the emperor, but he'd been in China quite a while. And he was very wary of getting involved in the politics and power structure of China. And so when he went to the... His meeting of the emperor happened when one of his disciples died who was living in the emperor's court.

[17:10]

And in order to respect his disciple, he went to the funeral and met with the emperor. I don't know if anyone other than Andy thinks that's what happened, but Andy explained to me in detail that that is what he thinks and he... to his mind, has evidence that supports it. So they did have a meeting. Who are you? Don't know. You see, and it's wonderful. The question becomes much more multifaceted when you leave out the personal pronoun. Don't know. If you want to answer that question for yourself, don't know. If you ask this one, who am I?

[18:15]

I don't even posit an I. Just don't know. Beyond your question, it references you or me don't know so something about how the particular of the moment can spark can initiate some deep wide appreciation of the nature of existence. The particular of the moment can spark an appreciation of wider existence. This is the area of investigation of the Zen scope.

[19:27]

And we take up rigors like Sashin. Because despite all the beauty of the non-dual teachings, we know there's a lot of habit energy racing through us. I must be led by what was given to me. The body the formative experiences, the culture, the many influences that come to bear in creating a human being. And then Merwin does a marvelous thing. There he looks like he's firmly planted and committed to dualism with all sorts of I's and me's.

[20:36]

He just cruises on and says, as streams are led, braiding flights of birds, the learning of plants, the thankful days, breath by breath. We are indeed inextricably conditioned, whether you want to talk about it genetically or any other way in the formation of this body and this mind. For those of us who are native English speakers, pronouns are our best friends. It is raining.

[21:45]

I mean, what the heck is it? The great watering can in the sky? But we say it to each other and we are not, like, mm-hmm, mm-hmm, you know? But when we hear, as it leads the stream, the flights of birds, The learning of plants. Now there's a good one, isn't it? The learning of plants. As it leads the thankful days. As it leads breath by breath.

[22:47]

As we settled into this thoroughly conditioned body. And let it breathe breath. And let breath breathe the body. Something in the tightness of that conditioned existence starts to crack open. When we see the arising thought, emotion, and experience it as itself, not energizing it, confirming it, and establishing a there and then, but letting it be the vital, energetic,

[24:03]

that's being sparked right here, now. Something starts to crack open. At the heart of Gigi Yuzamai, the chant we do every lunch hour, at the very heart, Dogenzenji says, Actually, he said it in Japanese, but the translation we use is unconstructedness in stillness. So I searched out a couple of other translations. I thought I brought them with me.

[25:10]

Cuts through fragmented concepts of the past, is not dimmed, that's one, another, is not dimmed by the views of individuals. So something is not constructed. The moment is allowed to speak just as it is. And as we give over to Shashin, we have our glimpses.

[26:18]

As Dogen Zengi also says, whether we realize it or not, something cracks open. And then quickly we plaster up the crack with new ideas or some well-worn ones that we think are worthy of repetition. And as we do this, in the myriad ways that Shashin cajoles us into, persuades us into, invites us into.

[27:23]

Something of this self-receiving and employing samadhi. Receiving conditioned arising. Letting the conditioned arising initiate, illustrate justice. As I was saying, quoting yesterday, you know, the actualization, the truth of that endeavor arises with the practice of it.

[28:25]

The more thoroughly invested in it, the more it arises, the more we give the more is illuminated. Maybe we could say our usual human condition is such that we are impoverished. We are here to get. We're here because we're suffering, Because things are broken and that has left us impoverished and we've come here to be fixed and to receive. How can such a person give in a way that transforms all existence?

[29:37]

It's a little bit like we're tripped into it. Out of our impoverishment, we come forth with a determined and dedicated effort. And that effort shifts the whole notion that we started with. And that effort is not so much self-made as it is discovering what it is to not be hindered by the self. This is unconstructedness in stillness, to not be hindered

[30:49]

by the conditioned arising of the self. We can say stillness is not doing something to what arises, not grasping it, not pushing it away, not making up stories about it, just being. In Buddhism, the notion of purification Letting each thing be just itself. In the sutras, the image that is used is purifying gold. When gold is purified, it's completely gold. It's not something other. It's the ways that was added or let go of. This is stillness.

[31:51]

Or maybe these other translations too. To cut through fragmented concepts from the past. The ways in which the concepts break up the wholeness. Create some sense of limitation, dissipation, unconstructedness. Of course, the nature of self in the dualistic notion of Merwin's first statement, I must be led by what was given to me I must act on it I must act on my habit energy reconstruct the world according to me or not because what's leading me is energy the way it leads the creek and the birds and the plants

[33:18]

and the breath. This notion. That it's simply not necessary to construct. Life does not depend upon it. In fact, utterly amazingly, it's the exact opposite. life is abundant despite our myriad constructions so this key notion anyway I'm saying it's key notion but then since our practice is to go beyond all notions.

[34:22]

But something about refining our effort, that understanding, it's about giving over. It's about giving over to the breath. It's about giving over to the chanting. It's about giving over to the sensation of the foot touching the floor and kinhing. It's about giving over to the schedule, letting go of the hesitancies and preoccupations that arise from our karmic life. And that that giving over releases.

[35:31]

It releases energy. Whether we recognize it or not. So to quite literally not waste our energy, not waste our effort constructing something. I need to construct the moment so then I can be aware of it. That's a lot of work. Both sides of it, constructing it and being aware of it, it's going to keep you very busy. So Nangaku instructs Master Ma.

[36:38]

Really? That's what you're doing? How about just being the moment in its original state? How about being aware as the effort of practice? And Master Ma says, got it, got it, thanks. It'll just take me 20 or 30 years to practice it. But you know, I get the message. It's a little unconstructedness. Like a fierce... Are you just going to live inside your own bullshit for the rest of this short, precious life?

[37:50]

Wow. Well, when you put it like that... to realize the complement of that fierceness is compassion. It's painful to be upholding a self-constructed world, trying to make it work and trying to have the rest of the world and the people in it collaborate and cooperate with the world we're creating. some of them don't want to they've got their own world going which strangely enough they think is better than the one you've constructed or at least they're more attached to it so compassion and patience maybe it becomes more poignant

[39:16]

when we start to deeply appreciate the request of practice and watch ourselves stumble along, determinedly holding on to old habits. It took us a lifetime to put them together. Are we going to drop them in a moment? And then amazingly the answer to that sometimes is yes. But then often we pick them right back up again. So Shashin, we drop them a little bit longer. We drop them a little bit more frequently. We drop them a little bit more thoroughly. and something registers, something starts to sink in.

[40:25]

But because it's of a nature of unconstructedness to build new ideas around it is often not so helpful. I would say to hold it in your body to hold what's being released in your body, to hold, maybe not so much to hold as to remember. To remember the yogic energetic resonance in the body, in the breath, in the state of mind, that that dropping revealed. To remember what those experiences ask of you.

[41:39]

Oh yeah. Unconstructiveness. How many stories do we read? Oh, and just you got it, what nonsense said ordinary mind is a way. And then he went off and practiced 20, 30, 40 years. We also practiced it in the next moment. And this stillness. We have our moments.

[42:55]

the world just flashes into existence and our being is nothing but a reverberation and then we have our moments when we feel the request to soften, to open, and something in us wants to firmly grasp. Sometimes we feel it in our body when we're stretching. Sometimes we feel it in our fixed emotional response to a particular experience. So even though the stillness of freedom is not so accessible in those moments, we can lean into the moment.

[44:22]

It's like in stretching when you exhale and soften a little. Maybe you don't like totally soften and flop the whole way to the floor, but just soften a little and something yields a little. Maybe you don't totally soften that fixed emotional state, but you can soften it some. Let something ease a little, or maybe more than a little. And again, something to do with patience and compassion as well as diligence. They're natural allies. So this at the heart of the Zen way, funded by someone who may or may not exist, who may or may not have been anything like we say he was, and may or may not have done any of the things we attribute to him.

[46:07]

There's a body of scholarship that says his main teaching vehicle was the Lankavatara Sutra. There's a smaller body of scholarship that says, uh-uh, nope, didn't do that. But we can discover whether any of that is true or false. We can discover in our own human body, in our own human breath, in our own human mind and emotions the wisdom, the compassion of unconstructedness and stillness. We can discover in our own being that if our effort goes to creating the perfect moment and then becoming aware of it.

[47:13]

It takes a lot of work and nobody's got there yet. We can discover that when we release, when we open the hand of thought, the abundance, the energy of existence is utterly available, exuberant, vibrant. and all inclusive. We can discover that when the shell around the world according to me cracks open and the agenda of having existence comply with me and my ideas and my version of reality falls away. that the world resonates with aliveness, like a stream, like a flight of birds, like plants growing, like a thankful day, like a breath.

[48:31]

that the currency of such endeavor is not knowing. It's experiencing. So I hope. I hope. You know, normally, when we have sashin, closing talk is about, well, thanks a lot. Nice to know you. See you around. But we're not going anywhere. We're just going to get up the next day and come right back here. So we have this marvelous opportunity

[49:44]

to stay close. Whatever has through good fortune resonated whatever of this great inconceivable liberation that comes forth through unconstructedness and stillness whatever has reverberated in our body, our breath, our mind, how we see or hear or taste, that we can just continue. That that same sense of unity, of one body of breath chanting, that we can just simply continue.

[50:47]

That Sashin doesn't end. As Dogen Zenji says, it reverberates on endlessly. It reverberates on in us as the vessels of awakening. thank you for your efforts this machine I hope it hasn't been a complete waste of time for you and I hope by the some of chance that there was any merit or benefit that we stirred up, that it reverberates through all of us, and through us to all the people we meet, and through them to all the people they meet.

[52:04]

And pretty soon, through everyone. Not excluding the wood rat and the kaisando, not excluding the cat who came last night, having heard about such things, to check out and see what was going on. Or all the other beautiful birds and plants and animals that have the good fortune to share the planet with. May they and we all benefit. from the Buddha Dharma. 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.

[53:11]

For more information, visit sfcc.org and click giving.

[53:15]

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