Good evening. Well, there, we just did it. We just sat. So I actually don't need to do anything else. Why would I want to add to that? What could I say? What could I possibly say that would be more immediate and helpful than yours isn't? I wanted to start off by thanking my fourth grade teacher, Leela Gross. When I was in the fourth grade, she asked us to do a oral report once a month. And we'd have to get up in front of the class and give this report. I remember doing one on koala bears. I was in the fourth grade. And why leaves turn colors in the fall. And when I was upstairs preparing for this talk, I was reminded of Mrs. Gross and those oral reports.

[01:09]

Not so much that there were any skills or methods that I remembered, but I just could locate inside of me this experience of having done this. having done this before and survived. Having gotten up in front of a group of people and opened my mouth. Of course, this is a Dharma talk. This isn't a koala bear talk, I don't think. And it's my first Dharma talk. And so it's different. It's not quite the same thing as an oral report. I noticed in preparing for this talk that my challenge was

[02:28]

How do I talk about the Dharma? And I was reminded of a favorite saying, an old Taoist saying. I think it's from the Hua Hu Ching. Might be saying that incorrectly. Lucy or someone. But the saying is, and it's talking about opening your mouth. It's talking about talking. And it says, it's like pinning a butterfly. The husk is captured, but the flying is lost. And so in thinking about talking about the Dharma, I wonder how can I do this? How can I not pin the butterfly? Hopefully you all will help me with that tonight. So we're here in the Paramita practice period, and we're coming on the fifth Paramita, which is called Jhana.

[03:34]

Jhana is a Pali word. It comes from a Sanskrit word, Jhana. And when it traveled into China, it became Chan, and then in Japan, Zen. We here in the West, In English, say meditation or absorption or concentration. And, you know, there's this big continuum that I see when I think about meditation or absorption, when I think about jhana. And on one end is meditation. is the idea of the jhanas. There's a mountain of Buddhist literature on the jhanas, which are actual practices that you can do to deepen your concentration.

[04:41]

and there's various degrees, and it's about calming the mind, and settling, and going deeper, and there's all these great Sanskrit words for it, and things arise, and they drop away, and it's very involved, and it's actually kind of interesting. So there's that. And then on the other end for me is shikintaza. Just this simple expression of some kind of fundamental expression of zazen, just sitting. So the jhana practices, my understanding of them is they're best cultivated during a long retreat or when you have a lot of time to spend concentrating your mind, sitting, meditating.

[05:44]

And we're in the city. And my understanding of what we do here is a much more of an engaged zazen. We do sit, but we don't sit all day focusing on our own mind or our own states. We also are going out into the world, getting up off our cushions and interacting with each other. So it's a much more engaged zazen. idea of meditation, and I'm going to try to talk about that a little bit tonight. But I don't know quite how to do it without corrupting the simplicity of zazen. I'm a little concerned about that. It's my challenge. So I did what a good Zen student would do. I went to the Blue Cliff Record, which is a collection of koans or there's a lot of ways you can describe them, Zen stories.

[06:53]

I like to think about them as, you know, all the old timers, people who are practicing the way have been telling each other these stories for hundreds of years. sitting around together, eating together, practicing together, talking about the Dharma together, and bringing up these stories about people who have done this before we did. And so there's lots of koans about concentration and meditation. But I open the page to the 50th koan, and it's very short, as koans can be. And I don't understand it, not one bit of it. So it's a little risky for me to bring it up tonight, but I am. So here it goes. A monk asked Uman, what is concentration on every atom? Uman said, food in the bowl, water in the pail.

[08:00]

Yes. A monk asked Uma, what is concentration on every atom? Uma said, food in the bowl, water in the pail. Now there's this newfangled way of getting the Dharma out there that we know about here in the city. And it's... this feature of people's email, where you can put a little quote at the bottom of your email, and so every time you send your email, this quote comes along with it. And recently I got an email from our treasurer, Reverend Greg Fane, right there, and his email had a little quote on the bottom of it, and it said, it was a quote from Suzuki Roshi, and it says, The true practice of zazen is to sit as if drinking water when you are thirsty.

[09:13]

Thank you. Food in the bowl, water in the pail. Hakuen, someone commented on this, and I'm just going to read a short bit of his commentary. just to know yourself clearly. And in the course of your daily activities, unobstructed by anything in the senses or objects, one nature pervades all natures. One truth contains all things. One moon is reflected in all waters. The reflected moons in all waters are contained in one moon. Concentration means correct reception. Correct reception means Non-grasping. The pillars are vertical.

[10:16]

The sills are horizontal. This is concentration on every atom. Food in the bowl. Water in the pail. Just things in their places without anything extra. That's me. the things in their places without anything extra. It's not Hakuin. So one way to talk about Zazen is kind of the classic way for Shouseau to talk about Zazen is Zazen instruction or the physical body of sitting.

[11:22]

And I'll say just a little about that. I'm not going to say a lot. I was thinking about Zazen instruction recently and I was thinking, I used to, and I haven't lately, but I used to go every once in a while, even though You know, I've sat a lot. I've done a lot of sashines. I've actually even given zazen instruction, but I still like to drop in once in a while. I think zazen is not something you learn once. It's something you're always learning, continuously learning. So I recommend that to try to go to zazen instruction and listen to how other people talk about zazen. maybe start to give it yourself one day. It's a great way to figure out what you already know. I think the most important thing in sitting is to find whatever posture supports remaining still.

[12:38]

Whatever posture supports stillness. Ideally, I think cross-legged posture is the most stable. That's my experience of it. And I also know that that's hard for a lot of people or some people. And so I think it's more important to find the most stable posture you can do in any particular moment. So the request, this request of zazen, is stillness. And as far as I can tell, I don't think there's any other activity in our lives that asks us to be still. Maybe I should say still and aware at the same time. I can think of nothing else.

[13:41]

By sitting still, I think we tap into a very unique experience and that there's information there that can't be got at in movement. And so it's important to find your stable posture. And actually, the paramitas, you know, we've been talking about the paramitas in a, you know, kind of in a linear way a little bit, you know, one kind of leading to the other that reminds me a little of like a string of pearls. But there's also a way that it's a little more organic than that. They're kind of like a bowl of jelly beans, you know, all mixed up together and rubbing up against each other.

[14:49]

But The paramitas also, I think, there's a way that they're expressed in zazen and in the physical body of zazen. I think of the posture of zazen as an expression of generosity, this very wide, open, receptive, available body. I mean, no matter what your legs are doing, usually your upper torso is just completely open, completely exposed, front and back. And that sense of generosity and the idea of the next paramita, sila, the non-harming. that availability and the non-harming, the sense of integrity and honesty that comes with the posture.

[15:54]

That stillness settled into a calming and the patience also that supports that. And from that, energy, the kind of yogic, energetic body, concentration, when you've settled, and flowering into wisdom, all in the service of wisdom. I recently heard a talk by Norman Fisher. He talked about concentration, and he said, An unfocused mind is easily fooled.

[17:02]

He said the unfocused mind is easily bamboozled. But a focused mind is naturally more clear. It's in its natural state. So all this in service of that naturally clear mind. Food in the bowl. Water in the pail. Just everything in its place. And anchored by the breath. So one of the hard things about never getting a Dharma talk before is not knowing how long to go. or how long it takes, that kind of sense of timing.

[18:03]

I feel like that's off for me tonight. I feel like I kind of rushed through things. There's just one other point that came up for me in thinking about this, and that is there are three questions that I often ask myself or that I find to ask them or to be aware of them is helpful for me. and around sitting and zazen and practice. And the first one is, why? You know, what is it that is supported in zazen? I assume that if most of you are here, you've done a little bit of sitting, and many of you I know have done a lot of sitting. Sometimes that's a real refresher question for me. What is it? What am I supporting?

[19:03]

Why am I doing this? I'm a little reluctant to use the why question because I know some people have some aversion to it, but I think it's important. And then to pay attention to what distracts you. What distracts me? What is distracting me from just sitting? What comes up? And very similar to that, what supports you? What supports me to just sit? And I think examining these questions are a good way to kind of keep practice alive and relevant. So I remember earlier this year, I had been at Tassajara last year, and then a good friend of mine, Florence, who's here tonight, bought a little biodiesel car, and she said, why don't you come on a Dharma road trip with me?

[20:39]

So I said, okay. And we started to travel around through California and Arizona and New Mexico, and I was involved in a project but I called the Paramita Project. There were a couple of friends at Tassaharan, one here at City Center, some Dharma sisters. We wanted to stay connected, and so we decided that we would write on the Paramitas all at the same time, the same ones, and exchange them and have it be a way for us to stay connected. And the most difficult Paramita for me to write about was concentration. was the Jhana Paramita, and I found it really hard to access what my internal experience of concentration was when, you know, even though we sat every morning and pretty much every evening, and we spent a couple of days at a...

[21:44]

a monastery, I still found it hard to find that settledness, that sense of concentration. So it was a little, when Paul told me that this is what he wanted me to talk on, I kind of inwardly said, oh no. But being in the temple is helpful. It is helpful. And one other recommendation I have is to, we're trying this in the little paramita group. We're also doing a daily study of concentration paramita, jhana paramita, and we've decided to all sit just for a few minutes at night before going to bed. And I think we're finding that to be helpful. even just for a few minutes, a very strong practice.

[22:48]

So that's something I'd like to recommend to you. Check it out, try it. It doesn't take much. You can just sit on your bed and see what happens. So Florence, my friend Florence, also does some email dharma. And at the end of her email template, there's a poem by a Chinese nun, an 18th century Chinese nun. Do you know how to pronounce her name? Zhurong, maybe? I'm going to read it to you as a way to close my talk. I like it mostly for the last line. I think it speaks to practicing in the city. I still recall how, with my bag on a pole, I forgot my yesterdays, wandered the hills, played in the water, went to the land of the clouds, the lift of an eyebrow, the blink of an eye, all of it samadhi.

[24:04]

In this great world, there's nowhere that is not a wisdom hall. So I finished really early. So maybe I can take questions. Okay, well, I'll read the whole thing again. Okay. I still recall how, with my bag on a pole, I forgot my yesterdays. Wandered the hills, played in the water, went to the land of the clouds. The lift of an eyebrow, the blink of an eye, all of it samadhi. In this great world, there is nowhere that is not a wisdom hall. Are there any questions? Yes, hi, Brent. I have a question about the state of the mind is still this. How do you know this? How do I know it?

[25:07]

I actually didn't say I said it, I said Norman Fisher said it. But it rang true for me. I guess I don't know. I don't know. Maybe it's not the natural state of mind. My sense is though that a clear mind is more helpful. And I think that's a more important question, whether or not it's natural.

[26:18]

Well, I don't know if that matters so much or what that really means, actually, but a clear mind is helpful. Isn't it accepting our mind for what it is? Is it what? And I'm sorry, I didn't hear you. Isn't it accepting what our mind is at that moment? Yeah, I don't think that's... Yeah, I understand why you'd say that. I don't think that's quite what this is saying. I don't think it's saying you're wrong if you don't have a clear mind. I think it's just saying, again, a clear mind is helpful, I think.

[27:25]

And I know what you mean. I don't know if my mind's that clear all the time. I got asked why I'm here, and then And, you know, what am I doing here and what's distracting me? But I didn't get the third thing. I think you said there was three things. Yeah, I went through that kind of quickly, didn't I? What supports you? It's kind of close to what distracts you, what supports you. They're not necessarily opposite. Anyone else? Hey, Lynn. okay yeah I'll just read what I read just to get to know yourself clearly and in the course of your daily activities unobstructed by anything in the senses or objects

[28:46]

One nature pervades all natures. One truth contains all things. One moon is reflected in all waters. The reflected moons and all waters are contained in one moon. Concentration means correct reception. Correct reception means non-grasping. The pillars are vertical. The sills are horizontal. This is concentration on every atom. Correct perception. Concentration means right reception? Yeah. What I think it's saying is... We have this expression in Zen trying to see things as they are, to see things exactly as they are in that particular moment.

[29:58]

So that's what I think it's referring to. Does that make sense? Is that helpful? It doesn't look helpful. Yeah. You know, all all day long were engaged in our very karmic life, a lot of karmic activity and creating karma.

[31:01]

And it's my experience that that shapes how we see things. if our karma is going to make us react to something in a certain way. It's not necessarily problematic, but it can be problematic. It can be difficult. So when I read that, what I see is the sense of concentration clearing my mind in a way that whatever is coming, whatever I'm receiving, I'm receiving it as true to what it is as I can.

[32:06]

And it's not necessarily a pure thing. I mean, it's not a right or wrong thing. It makes me more available to have a relationship with it that lets the integrity of what I'm receiving come through as much as possible. It kind of creates a more open channel. And knowing something that's less about my opinion of it and more about what it is. I hope that helped. Anyone else? Yes? Do you think that there's any way that the effort was called for the city?

[33:07]

Yeah, in some ways it is. Again, I don't think a lot of what's happening in the city is going to ask you to be still. I don't think a lot of what's happening in the city is necessarily going to encourage you to settle and to to develop concentration. It's not that what the city asks for is asking for anything wrong. I just don't think it's asking for those specific things. So in that sense, I feel like the effort is slightly different. Anyone else?

[34:13]

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