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. Have you noticed that Zazen instruction, for those of you who've had it, doesn't really give you much to work with, right? I mean, oftentimes Zazen instruction starts with, you know, please take your shoes off. And then it goes to, these are the signals that will tell you when to come to the Zendo and when not to go to the Zendo or like when to go around to the back or whatever. And then you actually get into the Zendo after learning how to like step over the threshold with your foot, how to walk not across the altar. And you get into the zendo, and you might be invited to sit down.

[01:04]

And then it's a lot about posture, right? And then in terms of the actual, like, what we think the actual zazen is, you're just told, okay, just sit there. Just sit there and watch. Be aware, be present. It's very simple. It's very straightforward, right? Instruction's not that difficult to hear. But the doing of it, the being aware part, that's not so easy. It's not so simple and straightforward. Because maybe we'll be aware for the first couple breaths, And then there's always this question, my big question when I first received Zazen instruction was, aware of what? What am I being aware of? Am I being aware of the state of the world?

[02:06]

My thinking, my feeling, what's happening outside the Zendo? Like, what am I being aware of? Did any of you have that question as well when you had Zazen instruction? Like, what am I supposed to be aware of? Yeah. How many of you had that question answered in your first Zazen instruction? No one? Wow. Great, I'm going to give a great talk. So no one really had the question, what am I supposed to be aware of in Zazen? No one had that answered in their first Zazen instruction? You were in my Zazen instruction. Thank you. Well, what answer did I give? Just be aware of whatever comes up.

[03:08]

Be aware of being aware. Be aware of being aware. And posture and the breathing. You can't do it wrong. You can't do it wrong. Did I say that? I said that. You can't do it wrong. That's a nice thing to hear. You can't do it wrong. I'm not sure if it's true, but... Yeah, so when we sit zazen, we take our seat, we find our center, right? There's a lot of, like, lean to the right, lean to the left. You know, you're finding your seat. You're being aware of your posture, how you're sitting, that you're upright. You take an upright posture as a posture of awareness, of uprightness. So you might have the cosmic mudra where your fingertips are resting against each other and your thumbtips lightly touching.

[04:09]

And you get to notice things like, ooh, my thumbs are kind of shaky right now. You get to notice things like that in the moment. But if you're not in the moment, you don't notice. So Zazen is about being present to whatever is arising in the moment, as it arises, and as it passes away. In Soto Zen, this is the fundamental practice, the practice of Shikantaza, which is just sitting. Not doing anything else. What does that mean, just sitting? Just sit. Because as we know, when we take our seat, and just sit, as soon as our mind does not have something to, like in front of it, like we're looking at a blank wall, right? There's nothing happening there, right? As soon as we sit down, we start to notice, if we're paying attention, that so much is happening, right?

[05:11]

In our body, our breath. Oh, the mind. So much is happening in the mind. Am I doing it right? I hate this. When is this gonna be over? I'm hungry. Why did I come to Tassajara anyway? I love this place. I'm going to come back for practice period. All kinds of ideas will flash across our minds when we sit. Another instruction that I don't know if I talked about in the Zazen instruction, there's something about non-attainment, right? In Zen, oftentimes you hear something like, make your best effort with no gaining idea. Don't try to get anything out of it. How many of you heard that in your Zazen instruction? Like, don't try and get anything out of this.

[06:11]

Okay, great. So if you're not trying to get anything out of it, why do it? That's what I want to talk about. When we pay attention to our posture and our breath, posture is happening in the present moment. Our breath is happening in the present moment. We take care of these details of our experience, sitting upright, allowing, allowing. We take care of these details, and in so doing, we're enabling ourselves to be open to the moment. or whatever that comes up. We try and drop our stories or ideas. I mean, they come up, and we don't push them away. So an idea comes up, and you just have the idea, right? So you're not trying to push away something that's just happened. But the next moment, are you there for the next moment?

[07:14]

Are you present for the next moment? When that little idea becomes a story, you might not be present. You might just be like, off. You're off in the story. And then you notice at some point, maybe, hopefully, or maybe not. Maybe it's a really good story. You notice at some point. And what do you do? You just come back. You come back to your posture. You come back to your breath. You come back to the question of, like, what's going on right now? What's happening in this moment? Sometimes this practice of zazen is called objectless meditation. because we're not focusing on anything in particular. This is very different from other forms of meditation. How many of you have had another form of meditation in your life besides zazen, vipassana or shamatha? Yeah. Meditations that happen in yoga, vipassana.

[08:15]

I had the good fortune of being able to travel after I left here, left Tassajara, and went straight to Bangkok. and visited monasteries, volunteered in hospice, got to give talks places, got to do a Zen practice period in India, did a lot of yoga, stayed in an ashram, studied Vedanta. I mean, it was just amazing, the variety of different philosophies and practices that you can squish into like a year. I mean, after being at Tasselhar for 10, and doing the same damn thing over and over. It was just like... Yeah. So I got to see some of these other meditations, and of course I didn't go as deep as I would have, you know, if I had spent 10 years doing them. But it was really interesting to see some of the differences in our practice here at Tassahara and at San Francisco's Ed Center, the practice of Shikantaza, with the practice of, for example,

[09:23]

like noticing the breath as it touches the nose, and just concentrating on that and nothing else. And when you notice that you're looking somewhere else with your mind's eye, just bring it back to right here. Very concentrated. Completely different feeling in meditation. I was amazed. I was amazed. So in Zen, it's objectless meditation. which I have to say I find harder to do because it's so much easier for your mind to wander when you don't have something to keep paying attention to other than the present moment, whatever that is. So in distinction to some of these other forms of meditation, the Zen path is kind of interesting because it's not exactly structured. I mean, there's a lot of structure in Zen, don't get me wrong. Anybody who lives here knows that there's a lot of forms, there's a lot of details to pay attention to. That's one of the admonitions or the sayings of the school.

[10:31]

Careful attention to detail is the family way. It doesn't matter whether it's your mind you're paying attention to or if it's your... hand as it's holding the knife and as you're chopping carrots or rolling pizza dough or putting toppings on pizza. I hear the Zen retreat might be doing some pizza. The kitchen retreat might be doing some pizza. So we pay attention to whatever's arising in the present moment over and over and over and over and over and over again. And we pay attention to our posture. Suzuki Roshi said, to take this posture, or the posture that you're in, the posture of seated meditation, or it could be lying down, actually. It's whatever works for you. To take this posture itself is the purpose of this practice.

[11:39]

When you try to attain something, your mind starts to wander about somewhere else. When you do not try to attain anything, you have your own body and mind right here. So this non-attainment, not trying, not seeking something. It's amazing, when I was in Burma, the path was explained to me as... Have anybody seen the pagodas in Burma? Like pictures? The path was explained as this, like, pagoda. I mean, the whole thing is, like, you know, really round and goes up. And then, like, at the top is, like, that's it. That's enlightenment. And it's like you take these practices and you do these until something happens. And, you know, you're coordinating with a teacher. Get some verification. Oh, you're starting to see this in your meditation. Great. Now stop doing that and focus on this.

[12:43]

It's very clear, very clear. I was like, wow, this is amazing. The interesting thing is that having a clear path, I mean, of course there's a path in Zen, right? There's got to be a path. But what is the path? How do you know you're doing it? How do you know you don't get some like, oh, here I am now, and I'm going to go on to the next stage? It's like, what's the next stage? Pay attention to your breath. Pay attention to your posture. So it doesn't give you much to chew on, to grasp. So another thing, as I've mentioned in Zen practice, is that we pay attention to everything without cutting anything out. Paying attention to the present moment as it arises and passes, and then the next present moment.

[13:46]

Nothing that comes up in awareness is something that you have to get rid of. You may have a reaction to what arises in awareness, but that's just the next thing that you're paying attention to, right? You don't get rid of anything. There's no cutting off. You allow feelings to come and go. but always returning to the present. Now, getting lost in thinking is not being present. So if you're lost in thinking, though, what do you do with that? As soon as you're aware that you're lost in thinking, you just bring yourself back, bring the mind back to the moment. In the retreat that I've been in this weekend, yoga, yoga and Zen retreat, we've been talking about Zen meditation a little bit.

[14:48]

And this question that comes up in your meditation, the question that I think is the most helpful question that arises when you sit zazen, the most helpful question to have in your consciousness is what's happening now? What is this? And then something happens. What is this? What is it? And then the moment passes, and then the next moment comes. You turn to that moment with this curiosity, with this open awareness. Wow, what is this? And then you might have a reaction to it, and then you turn to the reaction. Wow, what's that? Over and over again. What's happening now? And now is constantly changing. And so we see this when we meditate, when we sit, and we're aware of moment by moment. We're aware of birth and death, right?

[15:50]

Things arising, things ceasing. I just realized I don't have a watch. Thank you. There's a koan. It's not really a koan. Is it a koan? I'll read it anyway. Nanyue went to see his teacher, Huanong. Huanong asked him, what is it that thus comes? What is it that thus comes? So Nanyue, the student, enters. And Huynang says, what is it that thus comes? Nanyue says, speaking about it won't hit the mark.

[16:51]

And then Huynang says, does it depend on practice and realization? That goes on from there, but I'll get to that. Does it depend on practice and realization? So the question that's asked is, what is it that thus comes? What's arrived right now in this moment? Nanyuwe says, there aren't words to describe it. When we were doing this exercise in the retreat, it's kind of funny. You ask the question. It's a repeating question. Some of you have done it, I know. You're asked the question, what's happening now? And then the person has to answer it. And then they're just asked right away again. It's like, what's happening now? I'm going to answer it. What's happening now? And a lot of times it feels a little tedious because you're just like, I just answered the question. And one of the things I said in the retreat is that it almost doesn't matter what you answer, right?

[17:59]

Because you're not going to get it. You're not going to get the answer, the right answer. What's happening now? This is what's happening now. It's like, well, every answer is the right answer if it's what's happening now, right? So maybe that's why Nanyue said that speaking about it won't hit the mark. Words don't reach it. It's ineffable. And then Huynang answers with, well, does it depend on our practice and realization? Which is kind of like saying, what does it depend on? Does it depend on making an effort? So effort, In Zen, it's kind of tricky business. Making your effort. As I said earlier, sometimes it's said, make your best effort on every moment with no gaining idea. It's like, what does that mean? Make your best effort with no gaining idea.

[19:02]

You're not directing your effort to gaining anything, which is usually how we think of it as like efforting. We're trying to do something for something. Suzuki Rishi says, strictly speaking, Any effort we make is not good for our practice because it creates waves in our mind. Yeah, you can't go this way, you can't go that way. It's impossible, however, to attain absolute calmness of our mind without any effort. We must make some effort. We must make some effort. But we must forget ourselves in the effort we make. So Huinang asks this question, does it depend on practice and realization? And Nanue has an answer to this. He says, it's not that it doesn't depend, or it's not that there is no practice and realization.

[20:04]

It's just that they cannot be defiled. They can't be defiled. Our practice and realization cannot be defiled. Our practice realization. With Dogen, practice realization is practice realization. It's not... practice leading to realization, or realization coming from practice. It's practice realization altogether, all at once. Hway Nung answered Nanyue's response by saying, I am like this, and you are like this, and all of the Buddha ancestors of India are also like this. So like, thumbs up. So what is this defilement? Defiled by what? Can't be defiled. Our practice and realization cannot be defiled by putting them into words, maybe. That's one understanding of this.

[21:04]

When we put things into words, we fix them. Actually, in our retreat, Denise pointed out that just in hearing the answers that people were giving, just like sometimes when we use a word that has a negative or positive valence, it's like we limit something there, right? We're fixing something. Could be like energy moving up. But in terms of that exercise, it'd be really funny if people didn't use those words. Like, I feel energy. What's happening now? I feel energy. Okay, so maybe practice enlightenment, maybe reality, reality itself can be defiled by putting it into words. But we can't help it. We have to communicate with each other. So we do. Maybe practice realization can be defiled by gaining idea.

[22:13]

by having some kind of attainment in mind. Now this, I think I've heard somebody call this the me plan, the attainment plan. Very tricky business. I mean, all of the great traditions of meditation are not about the me plan, right? None of them are about the me plan. They're all about transcending the me. Breaking free of the me. In yoga, one of the highest forms of yoga or one of the highest pursuits is the pursuit of moksha, which is release from being a wanting person. That's one of the highest goals of yoga. To be free from wanting. So maybe that's what defiled practice realization looks like. Not sure. Of course, we make lots of effort in yoga.

[23:18]

We've been making some effort. Lots of effort. And in Zen, too. We make lots of effort. It's relentless. Yeah. When Graham and I came back to do Sashin, this past practice period, we got here, and when we got here, it was like... Why did we ever leave Tazahara? This is so amazing. Oh, the people are so lovely. We were just overjoyed to be back in the valley in practice period, no less. And after maybe a couple days of Sashin, we looked at each other like, oh yeah, it never ends. So yeah, there's a lot of effort. A lot of effort is happening here. And we need it. But we also have to let go of it, right? That's why there's this... nice saying of making your best effort with no gaining idea. And it's a hard thing to, it's a hard, that's the path, that's a hard one to walk down.

[24:21]

Now, also, we have to be aware of our, we have to be aware of when something comes up and we label it good or bad. Because that happens, right? That's always happening. If you ever pay any attention to your mind, you notice this is always happening. Good, bad, good, bad. Neutral, I didn't even notice that. And we have ideas. We have ideas about things. We have stories. A lot of them, most of them, well, most of them, I think, are about ourselves. Our stories. Ideologies. We get fixed. We talked about this today, too. So we have to be aware of whatever it is that's arising. We don't cut any of it out. So when a story arises, can we turn to the story? Can we turn to the story with this open awareness, without pushing it away, without grasping it and saying, reifying it and saying, this is true?

[25:29]

Can we do that? Can we just notice what's happening? Oh, there's that story again. Oh, there's a new story. and breathe, and sit upright, return to the present, and see what happens in the next moment. You might notice that that story makes you tense in your stomach, and you're just like, ah, that story, ah. So, okay, do you, like, you know, is that something to, like, cut off to? Like, no, I can't, I'm not going to do that because it's making me tense. It's like, no, you're just aware of what happens. So this requires a lot of trust. I find. A lot of trust in what? In reality, right? What's happening? Not good, not bad, but this is what's happening over and over again. Now, our ideas...

[26:38]

We don't push them away, but we also don't indulge them. But in terms of indulging them, it's kind of like taking them to be real, our ideas. Taking our ideas to be real as opposed to what's happening in the moment. The idea comes, great, you're having an idea. Does the content of the idea need to be true for you to have the idea? No, right? And most of the times it's actually not. So we have these ideas, and then we sometimes believe them. And sometimes we believe them a lot. We have ideas about ourselves. We also have ideas about enlightenment, right? Attainment, what our highest goals are. We have these ideas of, like, this is where I'm at, and this is where I want to be. And to get from here to there, this is what it's going to look like. Because, right, we want something. We want... some structure to hold on to, and the rope that's going to lead us out to the samsaric world, depicted in Tibetan paintings.

[27:43]

It's like, yeah, that little rainbow swirl that you walk along, and there's bodhisattva there. It's wonderful. What is that rope? I have a Dogen quote. When you realize Buddha Dharma, you do not think, this is realization, just as I expected. Even if you think so, realization invariably differs from your expectation. Realization is not like your conception of it. What you think one way or another before realization is not a help for realization. Whew. It's kind of rough. So we come back to the practice of taking our seat.

[28:47]

We adjust our posture. We let go of our ideas. We greet the idea that shows up in the next moment because that's what's happening. We come back to the present, which means opening the hand. coming back to the present means we're not clutching on what just happened before. We're not in the past. We're open to the next moment. We don't cut off anything. We deeply investigate this body-mind, this present moment, this experience. And everything that arises in this anything that arises in this posture, whether it's me sitting here, working in the kitchen, working in the garden, working in the dining room, working as a lawyer, whatever it is, whatever posture you find in, it's universal.

[29:57]

Any posture, whether you're in a deep chest opener, you're in downward dog, Whatever arises in whatever posture you're in, in the present moment, you don't cut it off. It doesn't mean you don't respond. You don't cut it off, though. Suzuki Roshi says, this is the true purpose of Zen. He says that a lot. This is the most important point. To see things as they are, to observe things as they are, And to let everything go as it goes. That's a tall order. To let everything go as it goes. Being really close to it. Being really intimate. Right there with what's happening. As it's happening. And you let it go. Meaning you don't try and stop it. You don't try and rein it in.

[31:00]

You're just really close. And you develop this very intimate relationship with whatever's happening. You can only develop that intimate relationship with what's happening if you turn your mind to it, if you're aware of it. Right? So everything that arises is the path. And of course, we fall off the path all the time. We're always falling off the path. And sometimes we judge ourselves for falling off the path. We have habit patterns. Of course we want to change our bad habits. Of course we want to be our best true self. But what's happening now? I'm trying to do... Arta Chandrasana? Is this the one we have? And I'm not able to do it. I'm falling out of balance.

[32:01]

It's half moon. You're just like on one leg. You've got the other leg way up here and your arms are... somewhere else and you're stretching out and all in one little shaky leg and you fall off balance and you fall off balance and you get back up and you try you fall off balance this is the path when I was a few years ago I was traveling in Japan I went to the home temple Eheiji where Soto Zen in Japan where Dogen established his monastery and I met a monk there who was wearing these shoes. Some of you may have heard me tell this story. These shoes that are, I guess they're called geta. They're wooden shoes with two little prongs. But these ones had one, one prong, and it was like six inches tall. So it's like basically a T for a shoe. So you can imagine walking in these shoes, and he took us on a walk up the mountain, like on this muddy, steep... I mean, it's worse than going up to Suzuki Rishi Memorial.

[33:03]

It was like much further up and... treacherous. And he's walking with these shoes the whole time that he's taking us on this tour of this monastery and the grounds. And Graham and I both were there. Some of you may know Graham, my partner. Graham and I were both there, and we were just kind of like, wow, what's going on? We're standing there, still standing and talking, and he's doing this the whole time. He's just like... And we actually didn't ask him about it. But he told us. He said, you've got to get a pair of these. This is Zen practice right here. He actually didn't say that, but he did say this is a perfect practice because you're always falling, always falling. It's just like our practice. Always falling, always regaining our balance. You can't regain balance if you don't fall. So what's the path? Everything. Everything, including all those little things that you think need to get off the path because they're, like, in your way.

[34:07]

So, like, when you're walking down the path towards the bathhouse in the night and there's, you know, whatever, it's dark, there are these rocks that just keep kind of coming up. I mean, sometimes people, like, students will take the rocks out, like, if they're particularly gnarly. It's like these rocks in the path... we stumble over them and we find our balance. Unless you're like me and you sprain your ankle like five times when you live here. I want to close with the last little bit of this Dogen quote. This is the one about realization and how what you think one way or another is Before realization is not a help. Although realization is not like any of the thoughts preceding it, this is not because such thoughts were actually bad and could not be a realization.

[35:12]

Okay, this is the rocks and the path. But since you were seeking elsewhere, meaning you weren't looking at what was happening now, namely that you're falling off balance, you're seeking elsewhere. You're in the future or in the past since you were seeking elsewhere you thought and said that thoughts cannot be realized sorry cannot be realization because you were seeking elsewhere you did not you thought and said that thoughts cannot be realization so what's realization What's realization? Thank you. And then he says, realization is helped only by the power of realization itself.

[36:17]

Know that then there is no delusion and no realization. I'll say that again. Realization is helped only by the power of realization itself. Know that then there is no delusion and no realization. This is practice enlightenment. We put our full, wholehearted effort into taking up the posture of awakeness and we meet whatever is happening as it happens in this moment. Our full awareness, our full attention is on taking care of this moment, and then this moment, and then this moment. It takes a lot of practice, but it's not separate from realization to be completely present in this moment.

[37:23]

Thank you very much. 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 sfcc.org and click Giving.

[37:47]

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