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. In the first class, I was trying to start with a sense of the human condition. It's a very interesting thing in our lives. Moments happen, often uncomfortable or sad moments, like a death or something like that, where we get a sense of what it is to be a human being. Like someone you've loved dearly dies.

[01:01]

And you realize, well, you can't blame anybody or you can't stop it from having happened. And that the same thing is going to happen to everyone, including yourself. And we know all this. We've known it a long time. In some ways, we've experienced it many times, and we don't know it. You can look at how we're thinking, behaving, relating, and it contradicts it. And then I was suggesting, rather than get anxious, resentful, bitter, discouraged, that we approach it with some benevolence, a disposition of kind inquiry.

[02:09]

And I think out of that, the aspiration of practice. And then I was suggesting that aspiration takes the form of intention, vow, resolve. In some ways I think of them as a continuum. There's an old Zen saying that when the farmer says he's going to plow the field, the crows just sit there ignoring him. When the farmer leaves his house and starts walking towards the field, the crows fly up. the shift from intending to doing that's enlivened, it's enacted through a resolve. And then I offered

[03:27]

offered a, I don't know if it's a poem, but it certainly has the flavor of it, the Dana Veldin find in a flea market written on a plate. If you want to bake an apple pie from scratch, first you must create the universe. In a way, I hope you get it. I don't think it's meant to be some obscurity that leaves us scratching our head. To sully it with ideas, the interconnectedness of life. So I thought of a couple more. At one point, I thought, maybe we should spend the whole class thinking of similar.

[04:41]

And then I thought, hmm, maybe that'd be better for skid night. What was that? Someone would say something? No? If you want to say Zazen, first you must create a Zendo. credit to Ru Jing, Dogen's teacher, who said, Zendo was carving a cave of emptiness out of a mountain of form. If you want to raise a child, first you must create a village. You can't hear it? Could you turn it up a little bit? It's the English? Between your accent and my accent? Maybe moving the mic up will help.

[05:49]

Let's see. I might do it. That's better? Okay. If you want to sit zazen, first you must create a zendo. If you want to raise a child... First, you must create a village. I'm not quite sure when it became a common saying. I don't know if she took it up or whether she actually created it, but it's true. That's who I would associate it with, too. But now what if we did this? If you want to create a universe, first you must bake an apple pie from scratch. If you want to create a zendo, first you must sit zazen.

[06:56]

If you want to create a village, First, you must raise a child. There's one of the coins in the Blue Cliff Records, Fuketsu, says, If you lift a particle, the state flourishes. If you don't lift a particle, the state doesn't flourish. Like we could say, well, we're just here in this tiny little valley doing this exotic thing, you know. What has that got to do with anything?

[08:02]

you know, with all the major issues of our collective world. And just to exacerbate our demise, I want to quote where Dogen goes. You know, I was saying, in terms of rising way-seeking mind, he talks about three kinds of mind. citta, pradaya, and ridha. Citta, thinking, discerning mind. In some ways, we could simply say everyday mind, in that this is, we have a version of reality. Within that version of reality, we have responses, you know. We like it, we don't like it. We're confused or anxious. We think of things to do.

[09:03]

we have aspirations, citta, and then hriddaya, you know, heart. I was looking at how different translators translated that, you know, and Kaz Tanahashi just calls it emotions. You know, he actually says, in labeling the three in English, he says intellect, emotions, and consciousness. But when you drop down into the Sanskrit, you get a slightly different kind of flavor. The heart. If you think in English where we say,

[10:05]

Be wholehearted, you know? It's not an anatomical statement. It's referring to part of our anatomy. And I would say it's not simply emotional. Certainly there can be an emotional quality, but it's something more than just, you know, be happy or whatever you might say. In a way, wholeheartedness is asking us to sort of align the energy of being with what's at hand. Align the energy of being with what's at hand. And then vriddha, in its elemental, it's the learning from experience, which I talked about quite a bit last time, if you remember.

[11:21]

I was saying, when there is continuous contact, experience, has a fullness to it. In some ways, it goes beyond the ideas and opinions and reactions we have. There is more potent immediacy and connection. And what arises in our life when we have such experiences? And I would say, if you watch carefully, this is the ground from which insights arise. And insights are a very interesting thing. They might not have new intellectual knowledge.

[12:23]

Oh, everybody dies. That's new to you? But in a particular moment, you know, the image that just rose to my mind was attending my sister's funeral. And we were in the parking lot, and everybody was sort of exiting their cars and walking across towards the church. as often happens at a family funeral, you know, there's lots of relatives, there's lots of friends of the family, you know, and just having that somewhat ordinary thought, and all of us too, you know, intellectually,

[13:28]

Well, what's new about that? But when something is touched deeply, felt deeply, when something finds its alignment with hridaya, then what comes up in the citta has an interesting kind of potent quality to it. And it's interesting to me that as Dogen's talking about arousing the aspiration for practice, that this is what he lays out. So, any thoughts or comments on that? Kaz Tanamashi translated all of that beautiful stuff about who left into consciousness?

[14:39]

No. So, Dogen Zenji wrote, there's three minds. And then, as far as I can tell from reading the English translation, he just listed the Sanskrit words. And then Kaz translated them one way and Nishijima Roshi translated them another way. And Kaz translated them as intellect, emotions, and consciousness. He added a little... He put in the Sanskrit. And he said, the first, citta, called thinking mind, the second, hridaya, here called the mind of grass and trees. And third, and then his footnote on that, he's saying the mind of grass and trees describes the instinctive processes that exist in the life force.

[15:50]

And then Riddha is here called experienced and concentrated mind. And there he was quoting the Mahashinkan, which was written by the finder of Tendai. You know, Dogen, his first exposure to Buddhism was in Tendai Buddhism. So he would have been conversant with the teachings of the finder of Tendai, Zhuri. Any other? I had an idea for everyone. But I was wondering, you might have already asked this question, and maybe it's premature to ask you, but I was wondering, as you were speaking about Rita, I thought, that's the kind of consciousness that I would expect Dolichitta to arise from Warsaw, at first glance.

[16:54]

So why is it that it's Chitta? That's what I'm going to get to. And that's what fascinated me. When I got to it, as I said last time, I actually thought it was a mistranslation, so I went in search of another translation. Because sometimes, as far as I can tell, I've never read Dogen in the original language, but his use of language is innovative. He'll change the syntax. He'll give a word a new meaning. And so when he does both of those, sometimes it's quite challenging to translate. I was translating with Kaz and we came across a piece and he said, well, how would you say that in English? And I said, I would say it like this. But maybe that's not so good because it's ambiguous.

[17:56]

And he says, no, ambiguous is perfect. Because then your mind doesn't say, oh, it means exactly this. It challenges you, I would say, just a second, it challenges you to go beyond just citta. It challenges you, oh, he's saying just that. To me, it brings out the poetics, alluding to something that can't be simply contained in the words. And to me, that's part of what I think of as the genius of Dogen. There's something expansive about his statements rather than narrowing into fixed belief. a flock of crows departing the field and that's Vincent van Gogh's last painting before his death was of a wheat field and there's a kind of a furrow or a path entering this wheat field and a kind of a gloomy dark sky and a flock of crows departing the wheat field

[19:19]

And you think maybe he did the painting after reading that coin? I think that he was in the parking lot with you. You know, I didn't see him. But he could have been there. And a lot of people have tried to discern, you know, what this painting means as an existential expression. not included in any of those is that Van Gogh, he had practiced and trained as a minister. But aren't you moving to a new topic? No, I'm not. Sounds like it. He was practicing and training as a minister before he became an artist. And as an artist, he wanted there to be a guild-like community of artists to practice with together.

[20:24]

And he started to paint portraits of the artists that he was inviting to this community, such as Gauguin. And himself, he painted as a Buddhist monk. He painted a self-portrait of himself as a Buddhist monk. And so I'm thinking that up citta and bodhicitta and how thinking mind, when I say thinking mind, it has this very sort of mechanical whirring in the head sort of feeling. And when I think bodhicitta, I think of interbeing, interconnectedness, and that thinking mind is conjoined with those crows in the sky. And so it just became meaningful to me that you started this talk with this image of the crows departing the field.

[21:26]

Okay. Thank you. You know, you made an interesting statement. You said, when I think of bodhicitta. Of chitta. Of chitta. No, no, you also said, yes, you did say of that. You said both of them. And my take on this is that Dogen's going to make this radical. I mean, because there is endless Zen literature and beyond that says thinking mind is the source of most of our problems, you know? We conjure up a version of reality and then we we respond and react to our own version of reality and get all caught up in it. And Dogen's about to make this radical statement that's saying, no, no, that mind is valuable and conducive to awakening.

[22:28]

And I told the funny story last time when I presented that to a Ratatangan Roshi and he just... Dismissed me. Fortunately for me, he was in his late 80s, or I think he would have hit me with a stick. Just a second. I've read descriptions of jitta as being more or less limited to conceptual or thinking by some stream of consciousness and others that while including that, also included awareness or knowing. in a broader sense. I'm curious how you're thinking about that. That's how I think about that. When you read the Pauli Canon and you see instances, and this applies to several terms, and you infer their meaning from the context they are in that particular piece, you come up with a variety

[23:32]

of definitions of citta. And similarly, what came to mind was the word sati. Sometimes sati is a concentrated state. And then in other places, it's just, well, think about this. And then with mindfulness, you think about everyone is going to die. And And so what I concluded was that they're versatile. And sometimes you'll read, one person will say this, and someone else seems to contradict them and say something else. But when you refer back to the early canon, you see, no, there is that versatility of definition there. And so when I read what Dogen was getting at, I don't think he was trying to be like specific, in a precise Abhidharma, Buddhist psychology way.

[24:35]

I was just, I thought he was trying to say, like I said, almost like everyday mind. You know, we've all got, we all know what we do with our minds, you know, on one level. You know? And then, and of course on another level, parts of what we do with our mind is quite mysterious. something about Dogen saying when we see impermanence, egocentric mind does not arrive. Maybe I'm not understanding well, but I see egocentric mind being almost synonymous with citta, or as synonymous with citta, the ordinary thinking mind. Yeah. I'm wondering if you there is a place where Dogen quotes Nagarjuna and when Jagarjuna is saying seeing impermanence he's not talking about just thinking about it he's talking about realization and I think Dogen was saying the same thing you know when we realize impermanence you know

[25:57]

When we're walking in a parking lot towards a funeral where a family member is having a mass set for them on that gray, overcast day, you know, something about the nature of impermanence touches us deeply. It's not just a casual thought, you know. And in that touching deeply, the whole world is shaken. The whole sense of permanent self, the whole sense of me is separate from all these other people is shaken. And then we draw it back into conventional language and say, oh, yeah, everybody's going to die. And then we all nod and say, yeah, yeah. Heard that before when I was about seven or six.

[27:00]

Those or can may happen simultaneously or is it one after the other? Which is the two of those? The realization and the thought. Realization is interesting because sometimes realization makes an imprint on us. Don't ask me to define that in detail, what I'm trying to say. I'm hoping it gives you a feeling that you can refer to from your own experience. It makes an imprint on us that's almost like beyond thinking. You know? Like that moment of walking across that parking light, I mean, I wasn't like enamored or enchanted by thinking.

[28:12]

It was actually something touched me in a different way than thought. And now I'm turning it into thoughts. So sometimes The potency of it lingers with us beyond thoughts. And then sometimes our mind will, in our endeavor to practice, formulate it in a way that almost like helps us remember. I just wanted to like maybe say something back about what I'm hearing you say a bit or what you're saying. And the way I've been thinking about it maybe since the last class. So it sounds like what happens is, you know, like you, you know, Cheetah could be like this, the part that the mind that allows us to function in the world. You know, we make choices, we make decisions, we go here instead of there.

[29:21]

Yeah, it's like our functioning mind, pretty much. And sometimes, I mean, there's like a parenthesis that I think, for me, the heart and the intellect are not as separable as we think they are. Exactly. But that's just a parenthesis. And then so this functioning mind or intellectual mind, one day, all of a sudden, like, decides to try something, and you get a moment of consciousness. You know, a little bit... Say that again. This functioning mind... Just try something. Yeah, like meditation, like a walk in the park, like whatever. And consciousness arises. Yeah. Or like an immediate experience of something more, you know, more, yeah, more, I don't know what the word, more profound or more here or whatever. Yeah. So then it sounds to me that the functioning mind says, oh, hold on, this is important, right? Like I need to integrate this into how I function in the world. And... Maybe spiritually like this integration is, how am I going to cultivate this immediacy so I function in the world in a different way?

[30:26]

Yes. Yeah. Yeah. With a different appreciation of existence and maybe even like allowing these things that are kind of stuck in my functioning mind to maybe loosen up. Yeah. I would agree with what you said. You know what I'm trying to do is in a way give you a feeling for practice that will make you hesitate around thinking up, okay, this is how to practice. And then if you're doing that, you're doing it, and if you're not doing that, you're not doing it. Or to give that kind of primacy to your own formulations. and to be, you know, to be informed by Hridaya and Vridha. You know? And then in mentioning, you know, attending a funeral of a family member, yes, we have our formal practice, and hopefully it's conducive with awakening.

[31:38]

I think that's the intention. But... Especially when we come into a place, when we come into an environment where we heighten the availability of awareness, that all sorts of things can touch us, that they can stimulate a sensibility. So having said that, I would like to try a repeated question. It's a dangerous thing to do in this kind of environment, you know, a lot of people in this small room, because it works best. How many people in this room have done repeated questions before?

[32:40]

Okay. Looks about half. Maybe it's a little cute to say, can you answer with vriddha instead of citta? I think it is. But can you try to tap in in that way? Like when you're asked a question, okay, this is not an intellectual exercise. Can you answer in a way that's wholehearted, heartfelt, authentic, that's not just there to kind of assuage your own ego or impress the person you're talking to, or not just a repetition of what you've come to believe

[33:47]

is the standard Zen thing to say. But can you say something that reflects what moves your life? Can you challenge yourself in that way? After my sister's funeral, which was interesting because the priest stood up and he read the homily that's standard for a funeral. And what we had agreed was, after we would do that, this was a compromise we made because my family, like many families, has divided opinions as to how things should happen. So we moved to the hall next door. And then we switched into a kind of a Zen-style thing that we do.

[34:50]

And I invited people to speak and took a little coaching because nobody except me had been to a Zen memorial or funeral. How does any one of us speak of the great matter? repeated question come from that place. And then the other wonderful attribute of a repeated question is we don't, as a person, we don't just have one sensibility about something. We have all sorts of sensibilities about it. So we don't just have one answer. We have all sorts of answers within us. And when you can come from this place, some of the things you'll say, you've sort of heard yourself say them before, and they're quite familiar.

[36:05]

And then some of the things you might say, you haven't heard yourself say before. And maybe you have a more like, did I just say that? But I would also say to you, when you speak the language of Hridaya, if it doesn't hold together so well in citta, that's okay. So, this is how we're going to do it. You're going to use this room and this room, and you're going to pair up with someone, and you'll decide in whatever way you decide. and if you could sit facing them, okay? You can do that right now. Do you want to stay in here?

[37:53]

No, no, you two have to get closer. Get on the same time. And can you pass me the bell, please? Okay. Can I see you move a little bit further from them? So you're... I think I'm the last one. How did you do that? And... How about the two of you? Okay. Well, you can invite yourself to be part of a threesome. Okay. Okay.

[38:58]

There you go. Let me give you some instructions. Here's how it's going to be. One person is going to ask the other person. First of all, now you can decide who's asking first and you're going to swap after. You're going to decide who's going to ask first and who's going to answer first. If you could do that first. Okay. Decided? Okay. Why don't you take some chairs from here? Yes. You can put them there.

[40:04]

Give you a little more space. There, big card. Yeah. Okay. So, you know, there's two kinds of questions. We're going to do one of them. One kind of around practice, around arousing the intention, aspiration for practice. And one is, what do I hope for? What do I aspire to? But then we can turn that question around and we can ask, and this is what you're going to ask, what does practice ask of me? Interesting. It has an affinity with dhanaparamita, giving. What does practice ask of me? And then for the person asking, As best you can, you're going to be neutral.

[41:07]

You're going to listen as best you can, but you're going to be neutral. You're not there judging, approving, scowling, laughing at the answers. As best you can, you're just offering the question like a gift. And then the person, something happens for them. Okay? And I'll ring the bell to start, and then I'll ring the bell to finish. You're just asking one question. Just one question. What does practice ask of you? Yes? That whole thing. Then the person answers, and you say thank you, and then you ask the question again. Okay? You got that? The person answers, you say thank you, and then you ask the question again. And then, as the questioner, you're gauging the speed at which you ask.

[42:10]

You don't say it so fast, like, what does practice ask of you? What does practice ask of you? But at the same time, you don't let it hang so long in silence that it loses its energy and its focus. Okay? Okay? And I'm going to ring the bell for you to start, but before I do that, you can close your eyes and just become aware of your state of mind, any feelings you're having, any particular sensations in the body. And then I'll ring the bell to begin. And ring the bell to end. So you can begin.

[43:14]

Not poking. Participating. giving up to the practice actually to have more people are keeps living. Is it practice actually? It's a part of this. [...] I'm not being caught up in my people's eyes.

[44:41]

I'm not being caught up in my people's eyes. I'm not being caught up in my people's eyes. I'm not being caught up in my people's eyes. Yeah, yeah. Kind of a forbidding. It's a suspension. It's a bit easier. It's a bit easier. It's a bit easier. Did I just finish your answer?

[45:58]

And then if you would, just close your eyes and attend to the thoughts, the feelings, the sensations. So you can change roles and start over. That's right.

[48:04]

Thank you. ... [...] And then if you would close your eyes again.

[49:13]

And just a very open, available awareness for what's prominent. Could be thoughts, could be feelings. And then let, upon reflection, let whatever thoughts or feelings or images hold them as a teaching. They say something about the alchemy of practice for you within your being.

[50:18]

They say something about what you consider practice as of you. And then if you could just briefly thank your partner. And then if you could come back into the form we were in before. So someone articulated words.

[52:39]

Those words had meaning. Those words requested a response. And something in you gave a response. And no one else could do that for you. This is both the gift and the request of practice. The gift of practice is to have the empowerment, the authority, the trust of being the person you are. And the request is to awaken to just that, to express that, to live it, to enact it.

[53:51]

Any thoughts on that? Practice ask of me everything. OK. Thank you. Without walls of the mind, ears drop away. Then there's an interesting question. Should you try to hold on to that, you know, like write it down on the back of your hand, whatever it was, or should you listen to the creak and think, there's lots more where that came from.

[55:19]

This human life is a fountain of aliveness and expression and being, and they're all teachings. And in spiritual literature, including Zen, you know, I've read Zen teachers who would say, after you've said Zazen, get up, forget all about it, and go into your day. And then I've heard other teachings that say, and keep that close to your heart. You know, that's what goddesses are for. That's what gasho is for. That is what the ritual that permeates our collective time together. So I offer you that for you to reflect on.

[56:26]

And then, without further ado, I want to read you where Dogen goes with this. There's some copy. Where did those copies end up? They ended up over there? Yeah. No, I don't want them. I have the book. Thanks. I just wanted to say the piece I'm about to read is written over there in those copies. I'll add some more. Without this thinking mind ... This is Nishijima's translation. Without this thinking mind, it is impossible to establish Bodhi mind. Every time I read ... I've read this several times. Every time I read it, I think, really? This is not to say this thinking mind is Bodhi mind, but we establish Bodhi mind with thinking mind.

[57:35]

And my mind still goes, really? Now, this is the sentence I wanted you to hear. To establish Bodhi minds means to vow that and to endeavor so that before crossing over, I will support all beings to cross over. Before crossing over, I will support all beings to cross over. And this in the realm of our intention about practice. What do I aspire to in practice? What do I wish for in practice? And what does practice ask of me? And then if we take that out of the singular and draw it into conditioned existence, like those three

[58:52]

pieces that I read. To make an apple pie from scratch, first you create the whole universe. Then you turn it around. To create the whole universe, you make an apple pie from scratch. To uphold the practice of all beings, first you pause, put your hands on gashow and bow, and let self-centered, separate thinking fall away. Before you can gashow and bow, whole universe creates itself and supports you in that moment with its earth and air and sky and human beings and geology and all the way that it's come to be.

[60:08]

And right there, with this great gift, you bow. The kind of reciprocity and the interaction and another human being sits opposite you and says what does practice ask of you and the two of you intertwined you know their words, their thoughts, their tone of voice, their physical disposition touches you, your response, what you say, the way you say it touches them. This curious way in which as a conditioned human being we are so ingrained to create

[61:20]

a separate self, me. And then this way, this invitation to inter-me, and how it is transformative. And then There's an interesting phrase in Zen literature, which I snuck into my opening statement of the practice period, ka no doko. And it's referring to this interaction that's transformative. In Nishijima's footnotes he says the phrase was crafted by the finder of Tendai, the same person quoted before.

[62:36]

And Dogen brings it up here as this kind of interacting is what enlivens. It's like from this interaction, the self reaches out and supports all being. And from this kind of interaction, all being reaches in and supports the self. And it's in the interaction. And then that interaction happens, takes place in all sorts of ways. Here's how he translates it.

[63:44]

The mind does not pervade the Dharma world. It is neither of the past nor of the future. It is neither present nor absent. It is not a subjective nature. It is not an objective nature. It is not of a combined nature. It is not of a causeless nature. Okay? Did he miss anything there? If you turn it into either conceptually or attitudinally or in any way, something of its aliveness is lost. This existence,

[64:52]

I'm hesitant to use the word dependent co-arising, because I think those of us who've heard it a hundred times, I think there's something about it that lacks a certain verve. I think Thich Nhat Hanh's interbeing is a much more enticing notion that we inter-be. in that it's entering into the aliveness of interaction that is kanodoko. So this negation is like the Heart Sutra. It's saying, if you turn any one of these, if you turn the path, if you turn enlightenment, if you turn the eyes, the ears, the nose, the sound, the smell, if you turn them into a fixed separate thing, you've missed the aliveness of interaction.

[65:57]

And when you don't do that, the Heart Ridge Sutra says, something turns. Something is awakened. And here's his translation. Nevertheless, at the place where this mystical communication happens, bodhi mind occurs. It's not conferred on us by the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas. And it's not the product of our own doing. This mind occurs in the mystical communication. And its establishment of Bodhi mind is able to occur in the human body. And then for good measure he says, on the southern continent of Jambudvidra, which is a reference to an old Buddhist cosmology.

[67:04]

Jambudvidra was the earth. We've since found out there's not just one continent, there's five. So in a way, it draws us into something we've all experienced so much in Buddhism, in Zen Buddhism. Do what you're doing. Give each action the time it needs. Do it wholeheartedly. you're bowing to someone on the path, bow and be nothing but bow. And in terms of practice, the challenge for us is that's a fairly easily understood request.

[68:18]

It doesn't hurt us that much to comply with it. But it has the danger of becoming mechanical. It has the danger of losing what Dogen's trying to get at here. And I think our lives are made of this spark of aliveness. You know, the koans saying, When you lift a particle, the state flourishes. When you do what you're doing wholeheartedly, there's an aliveness. When you do what you're doing and you're thinking, how much longer has work period got to go? Why am I have to do this?

[69:24]

I really want to be in the garden. or whatever, there's a way in which we stay contained within the structure of the self, the habitual structure of the self. And this interaction invites us beyond. And so as we're arising this spirit of practice for the practice period, How can we take this in? How can you take in your own answers to the question, what does practice ask of you? You said it. It was your words. It came out of your body, your heart, your mind. What does your life ask of you?

[70:28]

What brought you here? Of all the things you could have done, what brought you here? And what is it to let that flourish? What is it to continually enliven it, continually enact it, to have a, ah, yes, I was at the bathhouse yesterday, and before I went in, I was really getting into bowing, and then I was thinking, I hope nobody's watching, because this is a little weird. But on the other hand, it's just what I felt in the moment. How wonderful that we can awaken

[71:36]

just bowing outside the bathhouse. How wonderful that in our interaction with this universe, with this world, we can make a contribution. So I'd suggest to you chew it over, your own questions, your own answers, what it evoked in you. I think we're different kinds of people, but I think Hridaya, that heartfelt, is important to us all. So I would say, attend to that. Notice that about yourself. And I would say, by way of encouragement, this is about empowerment.

[72:44]

This is about cultivating trust. This is about valuing the authenticity of your own being. These are precious things. And I would admonish you, say, please don't let your practice become a matter of compliance. It's a dangerous thing to say because we have all these rules. But I would say, please consider them as gifts and explore that. And let... what that cultivates for you, let it flow into being here. And each of us will emphasize different things without quite noticing it.

[73:50]

We tend to emphasize the place where we have access to intimacy with it. if you really like doing aureoki, you tend to think, well, aureoki is one of the most important things we do. If you really like sitting zazen, you think, well, zazen is the practice. Let's sit in zazen, you know. If you really are touched by the feeling of sangha and the connectedness and the intimacy, then you're inclined to think of sangha, you know, taking care of each other. I mean, what a wonderful mandala we live in, you know? You can be Benji and be emptying the compost buckets, and you have the world system you're living in is so evident, you know?

[74:55]

This is my contribution to the food cycle. This is my contribution. I take this, I bring it out, I compost it, we put it in the garden, and we grow vegetables and flowers. I am engaging the interconnectedness of being. mystical communion. I would say it like this to you. Watch yourself. Where is the spark for you? Where is the way of engaging that turns you on? That enlivens.

[76:04]

And then also watch what can incline you to have that become more versatile. Because if we just stick with our own predilections and our place of preference, then your practice gets out of balance. This is the most important point of my practice, so I don't pay so much attention to that. Can you open? Look at my mind, my feelings behaving a certain way. What if I experimented with putting more of my heart into that? And then the last thing I would say is vrdiya, the grind of being.

[77:21]

Experience the experience you're experiencing. This is what sparks the turning. This is what helps nurture the authenticity, the trust. This is what enables the vitality of being alive to not contract around a separate self but to flower into being. I mean, and what could be simpler? Experience, experience, being experienced. What else?

[78:24]

You're already doing it. You don't need anything extra. You're completely equipped and qualified to do it entirely. Okay. 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 sfcc.org and click giving.

[79:00]

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