This podcast is offered by the San Francisco Zen Center on the web at sfzc.org. Our public programs are made possible by donations from people like you. Welcome to Fourth Day. I'm sitting here. You're looking particularly beautiful after sitting silently yesterday. So just a note, we have a little change in the schedule this afternoon. I think people are aware we're doing some work down on the farm. Extending alignment. Extending generosity in our activity.

[01:06]

Silently engaging. Silently engaging with work in the farm. That means the break after lunch will be a little bit shorter. Then there'll be a sufficient break after we work to get cleaned up again and changed and ready for tea. So silently sitting yesterday, I rediscovered to my horror that I'm Believing in my thoughts again. You know, we say delusions are endless. When we do the four vows, delusions are endless.

[02:12]

I vow to end them. But ending them is not so easy because of the feeling of... Well, maybe the embarrassment of being found out. So there are many examples, but an example for me from yesterday, my confession, is I'm looking at Maria. Maria was soku during lunch. So during lunch, she came by and I said, could you move the Incan over to Valerie? so that there's a bell to ring at the end of lunch. So Maria just kindly nodded and went on her way. And she didn't move the Incan. But I noticed she checked with Valerie and checked with Ray Wren.

[03:14]

It was only after lunch that I realized that I had been believing that there was only one Incan in the Zendo. And there was a second Incan that Rayrin had all the time. And so I felt very foolish. And causing Maria to go to all that extra effort to not do what I asked her to do. But it just reminded me of how much each of us can't help believing what we think. And how much of it is wrong. Valerie? Was it one of these telephone trees?

[04:27]

No. So, yes, so you're delighted. Oh, that's good. I thought that the timing on the bell improved.

[05:27]

So somehow that's how sangha works. One person's mistake turns into someone else's good practice. Oh. Thank you. Thank you. So I will continue to make my mistakes and once in a while confess and hear what I can learn from that. So one of the classic Zen dialogues that I've been offering from time to time is... Nanyue, Nanyue visiting Huyneng. So Huyneng's the sixth ancestor in China. Nanyue was a young fellow who, he had already, at an early age, I think about age 15, dedicated his life to Dharma and began studying the Vinaya, studying the precepts.

[06:48]

the 200 and some precepts. And then he had another teacher on Mount Song. And then from there he went and he met with Wei Nung. And when he arrived, Wei Nung asked, where do you come from? And he said, from Mount Song. And Wei Nung then asked, what is it that thus comes? And Nanyo Wei didn't know what to say. So he stayed and entered practice there at Hwai Nung's place. And so I think he was practicing alignment and generosity. He continued with this question, what is it that best comes? What is it?

[07:51]

What is it that thus comes? So where do you come from? Where are you coming from? When you present yourself, when you enter, when you become conscious of this moment. So after eight years of practicing with this, he said, he came back to Huenang one day and he said, I have an understanding. And Hoi Nung said, what? What is it? And Nanui said, to say it is a thing misses the mark. To say it is a thing misses the mark. So then Hoi Nung asked, well, can it be made evident? And Nanyue said, I don't say it cannot be made evident, only that it cannot be defiled.

[09:12]

So Nanyue said, yes, this is what cannot be defiled. is the teaching of all the Buddhas and ancestors. You are thus, and I am also thus. So this wonderful realization that it cannot be defiled points to this very moment, this life and this breath, and as you sit and face whatever arises, can you see? Do you see that it cannot be defiled, that it originally is not defiled? So it cannot be defiled, and yet we need

[10:28]

to continue to make this discovery, just as many times yesterday and today already, I've been discovering how I am attached to a particular notion, particular thought. But that thought itself is already included in Buddha mind, already included in vastness. already included. Since there's nothing outside of vastness, there's no defilement. Since there's nothing outside this moment, which is already complete, means that all the distances between us are already our complete interconnectedness. And still, again and again, we have difficulty.

[11:36]

The karma that we carry is very strong. So then our study is to carefully investigate without turning away from this experience that has so much to teach us. So this practice, then this practice of alignment with generosity is not turning away. It's being willing to be in a good relationship, which means to completely accept the relationship that you already have. fully appreciate it, and turn with it, participate with it. So, we have these many, let's say, teachings, many pointers.

[12:56]

I mentioned that Nanyue had already studied the Vinaya, So he already, I'm sure, was completely familiar with foundations of mindfulness and understood practicing mindful awareness. So mindful awareness begins with the body, this moment, being attentive to the experience of the body this moment. So we talked about alignment of the body a little bit a couple of days ago. And how alignment of the body involves the breath. And it involves impermanence. Understanding that this body is continually changing. So alignment is not something that you can ever arrive at. It's always arriving, arriving, arriving.

[14:02]

but not arrived. So our practice is like present participle. So the first foundation of mindfulness has to do with body and breath, and the second has to do with simply noticing the feelings, the immediate response to the experience that arises. Immediate response means to know whether this body, this organism wants to move away from it or move toward it or has no particular sense of wanting to move away or toward. Sometimes we say this is Aversion. Aversion is wanting to move away.

[15:04]

An adversion, turning toward it. If there's something that is slightly, even slightly appealing and you want to turn toward it a little bit. Something that registers as pleasant or beautiful. The organism, this whole being, wants to move a little bit more toward it. So it's a note that at the most elemental level. So you hear a sound. Do you regard it as pleasant, as unpleasant? Want a little more of it? Would you rather it not be there? So this is the beginning of, you know, and we've already, of course, in our past lives, have been doing this for thousands and millions and billions of times, orienting ourselves in the world of relationship, orienting ourselves in relation to the myriad things.

[16:23]

And we're always looking for patterns and making sense out of things, which we need to do. And at the same time, patterns that then become some belief that then we are caught up by, caught up in, can cause tremendous suffering. And the more we're caught up in the suffering, the more we're blinded to what's happening now. So we say that this practice is simply to see things clearly, to observe and see things clearly. So as you sit, you may notice that the tendency is to observe

[17:31]

interpret based on the past rather than seeing what's happening right now fresh. So if you don't see what's happening now with some freshness, then you miss. So I was just noticing we have Robert Aiken's name, Robert Aiken's photograph up on the So his image from some time up there on the altar. And I studied with him for a while. And I remember one session, I was sitting. He would do session up at Ring of Bone, Zendo. Gary Snyder's place, Kit Kedizi, up in the foothills of the Sierras.

[18:33]

So he was challenging me about my practice of shikantaza. You people with shikantaza, what can you say about mu? So we were having this kind of exchange about, for me it was like, should I take up mu or should I stick with shikantaza? But Robert Aiken, he loved words, you know, so he couldn't resist because my name is Stuckey. He couldn't resist saying, you're really stuck. Just like your name. You're really stuck. He just laughed uproariously. That was the funniest thing. And I'm really feeling miserable. I said, hmm.

[19:36]

Excuse me. There we go. Excuse me. Anyway, he was a very strong teacher, a wonderful teacher. I didn't get to study with him very much because he He was getting old and his health meant that he didn't want to come traveling to the mainland very often. And it stayed more and more in Hawaii. And it didn't work for me to move to Hawaii. Anyway, this is two weeks now, 14 days since his... passing and we'll do the memorial, we'll do the evening service as a memorial service, just recognizing 14 days.

[20:45]

And then we'll have a little bit larger recognition on the 49th day at San Francisco's end center in the city. A little bit more of a service where we also have time for people to make statements. So that's September 23rd. If you're not familiar with his book, Mind of Clover, I think it's still one of the best. It will always be a classic of Buddhist ethics focusing on the Bodhisattva precepts. So whenever someone wants to study precepts with me, that's one of the references that we use.

[21:47]

And his book, I think he published 13 books. They're all good. For daily practice, his book of Gathas, The Dragon Never Sleeps, is worth looking at. It can help you find ways to remind yourself to wake up to what you're doing throughout all the activities of your life. And sometimes it's helpful to have a verse to dedicate so that your action is in alignment with the awakening of all beings. So after the second foundation of mindfulness, which has to do with noticing feeling at this most elemental level, positive, negative, neutral, just to note it.

[23:04]

So we have the practice of just noting, just noticing without getting diverted by it. As soon as you think, oh, negative feeling, I don't like something, and the reason I don't like it, and pretty soon you're all involved in much more than just noting. So just to note the feeling and stay present. What tends to happen next then is the third foundation of mindfulness, the recognition of states of mind. And... I think it's helpful to look at states of mind in a big way. I mean, you may notice, oh, I'm feeling sleepy. I'm feeling more awake. I'm noticing that things are bright and clear. I'm noticing that things are kind of murky and dull. This is all noticing, just to notice your state of mind, not to then get involved in trying to figure out how to get out of it.

[24:13]

But just to note it. Just note the state of mind and appreciate it. This state of mind has something to tell you. This state of mind is an opportunity for awakening. Just to meet it. Just to see it. So this goes for any state of mind. The most... most difficult feeling of irritation. I'm noting irritation. Oh, now it's becoming stronger. I'm beginning to notice this anger. I'm beginning to notice this state of mind is turning into full-blown rage. So just to note, as it has its own rhythm, like the breath, inhaling, just letting the breath come in, receiving it, exhaling, just releasing.

[25:20]

So to receive a state of mind, fully acknowledge a state of mind, is to practice mindfulness and the third foundation of mindfulness, we say. So then to refine that is to look at particularly what we call... I think a good translation is samskara is like volitional bundles. In other words, this is a pattern. I was talking about patterns that we adopt certain patterns. And these patterns are karmic in that they have some volitional force. Volitional spores means that because you have adopted this pattern, when the conditions are right, this pattern will be activated and you will do something.

[26:26]

Or you will at least feel impelled to do something. So sitting zazen, some of the big difficulty in zazen is to feel impelled to do something and then be still with it. Not having to do it. which means you don't have to perpetuate the legacy of all of the, say, harmful karma or negative, unwholesome history that you carry. So each of us carries a whole mix of what's helpful and what's unhelpful, what's wholesome and what's unwholesome, what is defiled and undefiled. So to see that even what is defiled is not defiled, as Nanyue said, it cannot be defiled. So to see that what is defiled is empty still does not mean it's not defiled in a relative sense.

[27:32]

It's still defiled. It's still unwholesome. It's still harmful. So this doesn't excuse harmful things. or try to pretend that it's not harmful. Its very defiled nature is what is empty, what is undefiled. I know this may not make any sense. This is not so easy to see, but you have a chance to see it if you do nanyue's practice. So staying with this question, what is it that thus comes? What is it that comes and goes in thusness? So the tendency then to add anything extra, so the volitional tendency to enact

[28:42]

the thought that comes up, and then to decide, okay, I'll act on it. This happens very fast. You may discover that you're already hating somebody before you notice that, oh, it was just a little something, a little something that was irritating that was at the level of feeling something unpleasant. but immediately turns into, so fast, before we catch it, it can turn into a feeling of ill will. Some person walks into the room and suddenly you feel, I don't know. I think everyone has some experience of this. But you catch it where you can. So you catch the habit when you notice it.

[29:49]

I told this story about when I stopped smoking. I started smoking when I was 15. I think I thought it was really cool. And I also knew it was something that my parents didn't like. So that made it really good. So by the time I was in my early 20s, I had a a very strong habit. And then I was doing a visualization practice. This was even before I heard about Zazen. But I was actually doing the I Ching. And I was doing the I Ching and I was smoking. And somehow doing the I Ching and smoking, I began to just pay attention to my smoking. And I noticed that my fingers were stained brown from nicotine and tar, whatever was in that.

[30:51]

I smoked camels. Some of you may remember. Also, turkey specials. I like turkey specials. A couple of heads nodding. Anyway, that was good tobacco. But then it struck me that my lungs were turning like my fingers, brown. And as I considered that, I said, oh, I have to stop. I don't want my lungs. I began to have a tender feeling for my pink lungs turning brown. I didn't want them to turn brown. So I stopped. So I said, okay, I stopped smoking. But I was living in a commune on the north side of Chicago, and we had everybody smoked. And so there were packs of cigarettes just sitting around. And so the next, I noticed myself later in the day, I had a cigarette.

[31:51]

I'd already lit it. And I had this whole pattern. I just, oh, pick up a cigarette, put it in my mouth, lie it out. Ah. So that's why I mean you have to stop the pattern where you notice it. So at that point I had to stop. Oh, okay, take the cigarette out, put it out. Then I began to notice more subtly when my mind even began to pick up, oh, there's a cigarette there. Or someone else would light up a cigarette and I'd know, oh, that would be nice. So it actually took a long time and still to this day when someone lights up a cigarette, this is... 40 years, some later, someone might say, oh, yeah, I still like tobacco. But that doesn't mean I have to smoke. So these old grooves in our karma, these old habits, don't necessarily just dissolve.

[32:54]

We would like the whole... tension in the body around that to just vanish as soon as we see that it's a problem, but unfortunately we're not like that. Sometimes parents discover, you know, some young parent will vow I will never hit my child the way I was hit, you know, and then discover I'm about to hit my child. Do I stop it right here? Or my hand's back here? Or did I hit the child and then notice? Wherever you notice it. Or did I just have the thought? Or did I just feel some tension in my arm? It's important to pay closer and closer attention. So you pick it up before you add more fuel to the old unwholesome action. So sitting in

[33:58]

it's a great opportunity to notice more and more subtly those tendencies. Notice the connection between the thought and the tension in the body. There may be, oh, I have a thought. I don't like that person. Or that person mistreated me. You know, go on. You can have a whole story around, you know, and justify all my feelings for how bad that person is. It's hard to see them as undefiled. It's hard to see your own feeling. It's simply, this is the perfection of the universe right now, telling you how it is. The difficulty I'm having right now is to be appreciated, telling me how it is.

[35:06]

So then we have to relearn what's wholesome. Or we have to relearn some practices that help us to see how beautiful things are. So, I brought one poem here to read. I think I have it here. I love this poem partly because I love pigs. I don't know. So this is, I'll read the poem first and then I'll tell you a little bit about why I love pigs. This is called The Bud. This is a poem by Galway Kinnell.

[36:16]

Galway Kinnell, you know, as poets, sometimes can really help us see what otherwise we may overlook So this is called the bud. The bud stands for all things, even for those things that don't flower. For everything flowers from within of self-blessing. Though sometimes it is necessary to reteach a thing, it's loveliness. to put a hand on the brow of the flower and retell it in words and in touch that it is lovely until it flowers again from within of self-blessing. As Saint Francis put his hand on the creased forehead of the sow and told her in words and in touch

[37:27]

blessings of the earth on the sow. And the sow began remembering all down her thick length from the earthen snout all the way through the fodder and slops to the spiritual curl of the tail. From the hard spininess spiked out from the spine down through the great broken heart to the sheer blue milk and dreaminess spurting and shuddering from the 14 tits in the 14 mouths sucking and blowing beneath them the long perfect loveliness of sow." So the second part with the sow, right? So when I was maybe five, four, five years old, I was with my cousin.

[38:36]

She was a year younger, so I think maybe I was five and she was four. So we were at her dad's place, which had been my grandfather, my grandparents' farm, and we were admiring the pigs. And it was a hot day, and they were looking pretty intelligent. because they had created these wallows of mud and shit, you know, water. And it was kind of a slurry, you know, kind of a pudding of mud. And we thought, hmm, that looks pretty good. So we took off all our clothes, crawled into the, through the fence and into the pen with the pigs. Got in there. Sitting up to our chins in the hog wallow feeling. This is really nice.

[39:37]

Pigs are around. It's very fragrant. And then we heard this... We heard these cries of horror... Our two mothers just kind of grabbed us by our little arms and yanked us out of our paradise and hauled us over to the shed and turned the cold water on us from the garden hose. So anyway, rudely yanked out of paradise. I knew from then on, I'd already had a suspicion, but I knew from that point on that adults really had it all wrong.

[40:41]

They just didn't understand. So I'm going to read this again. The bud stands for all things, even for those things that don't flower. For everything flowers from within of self-blessing. Though sometimes it is necessary to reteach a thing its loveliness, to put a hand on the brow of the flower and retell it in words and in touch, It is lovely until it flowers again from within of self-blessing. As Saint Francis put his hand on the creased forehead of the sow and told her in words and in touch, blessings of the earth on the sow.

[41:52]

And the sow began remembering all down her thick length from the earthen snout all the way through the fodder and slops to the spiritual curl of the tail, from the hard spininess spiked out from the spine down through the great broken heart, to the sheer blue milk and dreaminess spurting and shuddering from the 14 tits into the 14 mouths sucking and blowing beneath them. The long, perfect, loveliness of sow. So Nanyue understood, although to say it in words misses the mark, it cannot be defiled.

[42:58]

And Galway Canal reminds us that, and Hui Nung also, that in saying, can it be made evident? Asking for some expression. Can it be made evident? And then saying, yes, this is the way of all the Buddhas and ancestors to come and go in dustness And Galway Canal seeing that even with a flower, it may seem obvious, right? That the flower doesn't necessarily understand its loveliness. That the bud doesn't understand its loveliness. That the dry twig doesn't understand its loveliness. that the person who you meet doesn't understand their loveliness, sometimes needing to be told, sometimes needing to be reminded or supported so that this self-blessing, this blessing that arises from the Buddha mind, this blessing that

[44:30]

arises naturally from Buddha mind, from having confidence in the true nature, sometimes is obstructed, screened off. And so we have this role to play as bodhisattvas, the role to play with each other and with those parts of ourself that we don't think are so lovely. those parts of ourself that seem completely unpalatable, too painful even to witness. Can you be willing to be present and witness those mental formations, those samskaras that are causing trouble? So then you have a chance to see it and see how perfect, how perfect it is.

[45:41]

Even when you have to leave in the mid-sentence and go prepare lunch. Thank you. Thank you. So staying with what is long enough to see it. And then see, okay, can I offer some encouragement? Sometimes caressing the brow. is just a thing. And sometimes it isn't.

[46:43]

Sometimes it's too much. So it means that you have to be there and listen so that you know what is helpful. Last week, my wife, Lane, told me I should watch this movie. called Wit. Has anyone seen it? You've seen it? Not easy to see, to stay with. But it's Emma Thompson, amazing, amazing acting. So she plays the role of a university English professor. specializing in teaching the poetry of John Donne, who discovers that she has cancer.

[47:50]

And so this movie takes you through her chemotherapy, her cancer, and it's sometimes excruciating, actually. There was a point where her old English teacher comes. There's no one else there. She comes to pay a visit. I think the person who was her, the person who she really had to convince with her doctoral dissertation, you know, that person, very tough, very critical. very sharp old teacher. The old teacher comes and Emma Thompson's very weak condition.

[48:54]

And the old teacher asks, would you like me to recite some John Donne for you? And she says, no. So her teacher was on her way to visit her grandson or something. And she had picked up this book at the bookstore, which she happened to have in a bag. So she takes out Runaway Bunny. So instead of reciting John Donne, she reads Runaway Bunny. Runaway bunny. Runaway bunny says, I'm going to run away. And his mother says, if you run away, I'll run after you because you're my bunny.

[50:03]

Runaway bunny says, I'll turn into a fish. I'll get away that way. And his mother says, I'll turn into a fisherman and I'll catch you. So it goes on like this. I don't remember the whole thing, but now I have to go get the book. A runaway bunny. You can't escape. You actually cannot escape this life. This karma. This karma. Someone wants you to be here. All the Buddhas and ancestors, like the runaway bunny's mother, wants you to be here. So please accept their generosity, which may show up as pain, as remorse, as restlessness,

[51:26]

may show up as stunning beauty that you want to hold on to, but then you know, oh, no, holding on to it doesn't help. Please accept this generosity. All the Buddhas and ancestors want you to be right here, this moment. you for listening. Thank you for listening to this podcast offered by the San Francisco Zen Center. Our programs are made possible by the donations we receive. Please help us to continue to realize and actualize the practice of giving by offering your financial support. For more information, visit sfzc.org

[52:32]

and click giving. May we fully enjoy the Dharma.

[52:37]

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