This podcast is offered by the San Francisco Zen Center on the web at www.sfcc.org. Our public programs are made possible by donations from people like you. So it's the first full day of Sushin. These days I really think about Dogen's practice enlightenment or practice realization. That's one word, and to me, you know, the beginning of Sashin is more the practice part. Last night we got inspired by David, and today I get to do the nitty-gritty to get us into the settledness. So, here's from Crooked Cucumber, and I want to thank Allison for helping me find this reference.

[01:01]

So this is called One and Many. One day at Tassahara in the late April of 1969, after the spring practice period was over, or in the spring practice period, and just before the guest season was to begin, Shunryu Suzuki walked downstream with some students to eat bag lunches and enjoy the water in the hot afternoon. Tassahara Creek was fairly high, and they had to cross it in one place They hopped on stones across the little stream, feeding into the creek at the base of the trail to the horse pasture. Then they came to a water-worn granite passage called the Narrows. There they sat on the stream-polished ledges near the gushing water and ate their cheese sandwiches, cookies, and apples, reaching down to get handfuls of creek water. I don't think we can do that anymore. Sounds familiar to many of us?

[02:32]

in the direct sun, and decided to go there via the deep pool where his students were enjoying themselves. He entered the water. The current was fast. It carried him into the whirlpool bowl and quickly down the falls into the deep water. Then he kept going down, straight down. He couldn't swim. He reached his arm out, but no one noticed or thought anything of it as he went under. He thought to walk out, but couldn't touch bottom. He found himself at the clear bottom with the crayfish and trout. He looked up at the legs moving in the water. They were too far away to grab. He became frightened and started to take in water. Up top, someone asked, Where's Roshi? They quickly fished Suzuki out, coughing up water and gasping.

[03:37]

Suzuki recovered and walked back upstream the mile to Tassahara. In his lecture that evening, he mentioned what had happened and said that not being able to breathe had shown him how deeply he was attached to life and air. It had made him realize how poor his practice and understanding were. he had to be more sincere and diligent in his efforts to concentrate on the great matter. A few weeks after he almost drowned, in his 65th birthday in a lecture at Soko-ji, Suzuki appealed to his students to join him in a rededication to sincere practice. He felt that he had a... I'm skipping a little bit. He felt that... He said that he felt a great responsibility as a teacher and was always thinking about what to do with so many students. While in bed recovering from a cold, he had thought about these things and decided, it might be better for us to concentrate on a simpler practice.

[04:50]

I think the most simple practice is counting breath. Whatever their problems in Zazen, pain, confusion, sleepiness, frightening or seductive images. Sounds like the five hindrances. The students were to join Suzuki in counting their exhalations from one to ten, over and over. He said, we're not advanced enough students for koans or shikantaza. We need more of a beginner's practice. And he admonished, if you count your breathing, you will easily notice when you're not taking care of your life. excuse me, your everyday life. I have many difficulties in my practice, so I think you too will find it very difficult to sit good zazen. I think we're actually in a similar situation. We're here in Sashin to really take care of the great matter.

[05:51]

The other day in class, I said, what is the purpose of our practice? And I proposed that that's about who am I? What is my life purpose? How do I fit into the scheme of things or into the world? How does my life have meaning? How am I meaningful to the world? And I asked that of the room, and for the most part, it was silent. Because it's immense. The great matter is immense. And yet nowhere... And no time is it more pertinent and urgent than right now. Not only because of the situation of the world that we find ourselves in currently, but also because we're in Sashin. Here's another take on what Sashin means. David and I didn't... I'm going to talk about water too, and I'm going to talk about Sashin here.

[06:56]

We did not plan this. Here's from Robert Aitken. The word sesshin is a compound Sino-Japanese term made up of two itigrams, setsu and shin. Shin means mind. I would say heart, mind. Setsu had several meanings. Touch, receive, convey. Usually sesshin is literally translated as touch the mind. But it also means to receive the mind. convey the mind. All these meanings are included in that one expression, Sashin. It is time to put everything aside, to forget everything and to focus all of one's inquiring spirit through the medium of the practice, counting the breaths or koan work. This is his lineage. To touch the mind, of course, implies an individual action.

[08:00]

To receive the mind and to convey the mind shows how the action of realization is not self-centered. I'm going to repeat that again. To touch the mind, of course, implies an individual action. To receive the mind and to convey the mind shows how the action of realization is not self-centered. So this is the crux, I think. practicing zazen. How do we touch the mind and how do we convey the mind? How do we balance or harmonize individual effort with action of realization, which is not bound to an individual self? What Aiken goes on to call the agent of realization. Another way to put it to fit into the practice period theme is when to make effort, and when to connect with non-effort.

[09:06]

So, sounds like a perfect place for the teachings on wise effort to come in and support the holding of these questions. When is it that I need to do something, and when is it that I need to let go? Of course, in Zen we've heard, do nothing. When you sit, just sit. Just sit with non-gaining mind. I've actually been asked over and over in this practice period, with all this talk about skillful and unskillful, isn't that being dualistic and therefore not Zen? Aren't we supposed to be just doing Zazen here? And it's true. We're supposed to be doing Zazen. And if we were to talk about what is Zazen, which actually in my early days here, we didn't talk about what that was. Anyways, if we're supposed to talk about it, then we could say that it's to be with things as they are.

[10:13]

Or here's Suzuki Roshi from Mind Waves, Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind. When you are practicing Zazen, do not try to stop your thinking. Let it stop by itself. If something comes into your mind, let it come in and let it go out. It will not stay long. When you try to stop your thinking, it means you are bothered by it. Do not be bothered by anything. It appears as if something comes from outside your mind, but actually it is only the waves of your mind. And if you are not bothered by the waves, Gradually, they will become calmer and calmer. It will take quite a long time before you find your calm, serene mind in your practice. Many sensations come, many thoughts or images arise, but they are just waves of your own mind.

[11:18]

Nothing comes from outside your mind. Usually we think of our mind as receiving impressions and experiences from outside. But that is not a true understanding of our mind. The true understanding is that the mind includes everything. When you think something comes from outside, it means only that something appears in your mind. Nothing outside of yourself can cause any trouble. You yourself make the waves in your mind. If you leave your mind as it is, it will become calm. This mind is called big mind. If your mind is related to something outside itself, that mind is small mind, a limited mind. If your mind is not related to anything else, then there is no dualistic understanding in the activity of your mind.

[12:23]

You understand activity as just waves of your mind. Big mind experiences everything within itself. Do you understand the difference between the two minds? The mind which includes everything and the mind which is related to something. Actually, they are the same thing. But the understanding is different. And our attitude towards your life, excuse me, and your attitude towards your life will be different according to which understanding you have. So as Izuki Roshi said, it will take quite a long time before you find your calm, serene mind in your practice. So at the beginning of any extended time of meditation, we are not able to not be bothered by our mind. We're still in this small mind and its habitual sense of thinking things coming from the outside.

[13:31]

We're still relating to and believing in our ideas of this outside stuff of our minds. So we need to be able to work with this small mind. The relating, dualistic mind isn't able to be with things in an inclusive way, not without effort, that is. to be able to let things be as they are. In fact, the mind that's relating to outside objects are often in conflict with objects. So one gripping of dharmas, this body that is, that we experience, right? The Buddha called the five impediments or the five hindrances. He said, there are five impediments and hindrances, overgrowths of the mind that stillify insight.

[14:36]

What five? Central desire is an impediment and hindrance, an overgrowth of the mind that stillifies insight. Ill will, sloth and torpor, restlessness and remorse, Skeptical doubt, he repeats, are impediments and hindrances, overgrowth of the mind that stillify insight. Without having overcome these five, it is impossible for a monk whose insight thus lacks strength and power to know his own true good, the good of others and the good of both. Nor will he be capable of realizing that superhuman state of distinctive achievement. the knowledge and vision enabling the attainment of sanctity. If a monk has overcome these five impediments and hindrances, these overgrowths of the mind that stillify insight, then it is possible that with her strong insight, she can know her own true good, the good of others, and the good of both.

[15:44]

And she will be capable of realizing that superhuman state of distinctive achievement, The knowledge and vision enabling the attainment of sanctity. So the five hindrances are mental and emotional qualities that impede concentration and therefore the ground for insight to rise, wisdom to rise. Or for us to know wisdom. So... They're habitual emotional and mental states that if we're careless with our attention, we think they are real. We let them color our perception, or we let them get in between. This is the trace that we're talking about. It gets in between us and reality, and seeing through it, we think that that lens is the correct lens.

[16:47]

Traditionally, there are five water similes that go with them. So I'm going to go through that. So I'm putting it in the frame of a pond. This is the pond of Sashin, or the pond of your life. Because it not only happens here, it happens everywhere you go. So first is sense, or sensual desire for pleasure. It's the area of the pond in which there's dye in the water, creating a condition in which what is seen is colored. In modern-day parlance, we could say like rose-colored glasses, right? Or again, something between you and reality. Objects in the water are superimposed with qualities that are not of the object itself. The dye comes in between the viewer and the object. With sense desire, the implication is that objects are seen filter through lens, which increases its value.

[17:56]

In sense desire, we gravitate towards pleasant feelings. We crave input through our senses. Of course, in Buddhism, we have six senses. Eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, and mind. So, in terms of the energy, how are you going to recognize sense desire? or sensual desire, which includes sexual desire, by the way, is that there's like a force field. It's like you can't help but get in contact with it, like magnets being pulled. So the characteristics is obsessive liking. Notice the obsessive. The liking's not a problem, it's the obsessiveness. Usually about food, about sensual input, This is why you like to look around. This is why we think about food all the time. When we do skit night, there's tons of skits about food, right? Perhaps about people.

[18:58]

Already, even though, how many periods have you had? How many hours have we been together? There's already somebody in the room that you just remind you of somebody and you're attracted to them in some way. So element of wanting, lusting, And then the one that we perhaps don't think of as a sense or central desire, again, we then mostly think it to be true, is around the sense of identity, a sense of self we find pleasant. We often perseverate on this sense of self that is pleasant. I was thinking about this, and when I lived in Egypt, when I was a teenager, one time my sister, my adopted sister, Gail, came to visit. So we took this road trip.

[20:00]

We lived in Mahadi, which is outside of Cairo, where a lot of expats live. So we took a road trip up to Alexandra, the old capital of Egypt. And on the way, we went to a beach, at the Red Sea. When I looked up the Red Sea, just to make sure that was the name, though I was pretty sure, but I had doubts, and here's what came up. It is the saltiest sea of all the seas that connect the ocean without even one river meeting the sea. A popular hypothesis for the origin of the Red Sea's name is that it contains a... cyanobacteria called trichodesmium, ethitharium, excuse my whatever this is, Latin, which turns the normally blue-green water a reddish-brown. I did not even know that part, right?

[21:03]

But it colors the water. That's why it's called the Red Sea. Now, it was really interesting. The thing I actually remember the most about the Red Sea is is that, of course, you know, we went swimming, then we laid around on the sand, and all our pores had tiny little white spots that were really hard to scrub off. In fact, my sister and I, I had long hair then, but my sister and I were having really black hair. You could see the little white spots in between because the sand was mostly shells that were ground up, and so it was really flaky, And so it kind of sucked to the pores of your skin. And also it was iridescent. So we glowed a little bit. And we actually really liked it. We're like fairies. We're like magical beings. So with that coloring of the sand on us, we created a self that was really pleasant.

[22:07]

So... Of course, sense desire is not a problem, but when you can't focus on the great matter and you keep moving to the sense object, then there are ways to work with it so that you can really focus on the great matter. Now, knowing when it's there and when it isn't is always the first way of working with it. And then, to use our pace, preventing, abandoning, cultivating, and extending. How can you prevent or guard it from arising? And the best way is to prevent the sense doors from having something enter it. This is why we keep our eyes down. This is why we don't listen to music. We don't read books. When there's a sound, you don't turn your head to look to see what it is or to... follow even sounds that you hear.

[23:13]

So you abandon it when it arises by renouncing the fantasy. Because usually there's a little fantasy that goes with it. The other day we were in the Zendo and there was a crashing sound in Lee Alley. And then there were voices. And I kept trying to think, do I need to go save somebody? Right? Somebody needs to save. And in fact, I think Roger almost had a big branch fall on his head. So that's the story. Someone will take care of it. Or you can abandon it by reflecting on the grossness or the grotesqueness of the desired object. We don't do this in the West too much. But if you find someone that you're just obsessing about and really you're here... to focus on the great matter, then you can, perhaps as an antidote, think about what happens when they get old and their teeth fall out. This is literally in the suttas, right?

[24:17]

The flesh melts off and stuff like that. So pretty grotesque, and then you can go, ugh, not so pretty then. And maybe that will help. Now, with sense desire, what it is is a lack of satisfaction with how things are. When the obsessiveness, this is all about obsessiveness. You want things to be different. In this case, you want things to be more pleasant. So satisfaction is what you want to cultivate. Satisfaction with what's here and now. Of course, in the ways of work with... All the hindrances, the Brahma-viharas come in a lot. So in this case, the Brahma-vihara of upekka is useful. Equanimity practice. Here are a few phrases. May I accept things just as they are. Not better than what's here. May I see things clearly just as they are.

[25:20]

Let me feel contentment. all the days of my life. So you want to extend. When you have no satisfaction, again, remember, noting that it's there and noting when it isn't. When you note satisfaction or contentment, extend that. Is your breath, if you're counting breath, is that enough? Is there satisfaction in just counting breath or the posture being upright? Now, another part of the pond, there's a hot spring. What do you think that one is? Anger and ill will. The water bubbles up with heat, hot and furious. So there's a boiling and a roiling energy there. And the warmth of the hot water can seem soothing. But if you get too close or if you're in it too long, you can get burned. Of course, what comes to mind?

[26:24]

Pasahara, hot springs, right? People go there for the hot spring. And yet, you know, having been a bathhouse attendant when I was there on the women's side, of course, people love to spend all day there reading books, going in and out of the plunges. And yet, you know, we have to kind of watch out for them because if they don't remember to drink water, also because it's hot, right, they could have heat stroke, right? Or when I was there, I actually developed four kinds of rashes, right? And it turned out I was allergic to a lot of the food, like, as in too much of it. And so this Chinese herbalist who came, right, to do body work on the students told me, You cannot go in the hot spring anymore, but because of these allergies, your body's just too hot. That's why it's having all these rashes. So even though it was pleasant on those cold mornings atasahara to go in the hot plunge, it wasn't the appropriate thing to do.

[27:30]

So the energy of aversion and no will, it can range from irritation to anger, hatred, Jealousy, envy, even violence. So it's obsessive disliking. I like to frame it as, you know, this is how you know that you're having it. So knowing what it is can help you just to leave it alone. Otherwise, again, if you're careless with your attention, then you think it's true. As opposed to knowing that it's an energy that's happening that you can just leave alone. So if you hear yourself, right? Saying the terrible twos, I like to say, T-O-O, right? If you hear yourself keep going, oh, it's too hot, this is too long, this is too whatever, then this is the terrible two, T-O-O. Then you go, oh, this is aversion arising.

[28:34]

Of course, it can get to the point of the terrible you, right? I'm sure nobody's having that except me, right? You are terrible because X, Y, Z. You did something wrong or you did something right or you should have or you shouldn't have, right? You find someone that just seems terrible to you. They're just not fine the way they are. Or it could be inward, this terrible you. So you're repulsed by it, right? And if you believe that, that's really potentially a lot of suffering. This is why it's important to understand these energies. Because then we could just prevent them or abandon them. So while the energy that arises with irritation and ill will, because it brings up a lot of energy, anger, it may feel good.

[29:37]

And also a sense of righteousness often comes with it. Lots of comparing, which, you know, you can get kind of fun. And you often find yourself better than somebody, even better at Worsat. You know, we make that into a better. It takes energy away from your main directive. Again, what is the great matter? Being with things as they are. So it's not a version and a will itself that can be a problem. It's the giving over to it. So ways of working with it. Again, preventing and guarding by just not going there. Keeping your eyes down. Following the schedule. This works for both sense desire and aversion, it will. Often, if you think about it, when you want to do something different with the schedule, usually you want something more, or you think it's too much, or you want it to be different, right?

[30:40]

some aversion or some wanting more. Abandon it when it arises. You want to narrow your focus, concentrate on breath. This is why concentration on breath is so important. You want to broaden your focus into global awareness. Or you want to move your focus. If it's on that person, then you move it back to your breath. You want to cultivate metta, right? That is considered in the Brahma Vahara the antidote to hatred and ill will. It's to send kindness to your mental object, which again could be yourself. Here's a few phrases. May I be filled with kindness or goodwill. Let me know peace and ease. Or perhaps if you have a lot of envy happening, Have some joy. Have some inclusive joy.

[31:42]

May your happiness never leave you. May your happiness be felt by me also, but in a nice way. Watch the tone when you do the Brahma Vaharas. Or compassion for yourself. Sometimes, again, with aversion and no-will, it's very directed internally. It's very corrosive. So may I be kind and patient with myself and others. Or perhaps if it comes from fear, your anger and aversion, let me feel safe and protected here and now. And you want to extend again satisfaction and contentment because aversion and ill will is dissatisfaction because you want things to be Less than they are. Now, at the other end of the pond, there's sloth and torpor.

[32:47]

That's where there's a lot of algae and water plants growing. Excuse me. Oh, that's true. So there isn't a lot of current or much movement, and that's why plants grow there, right? So things are sluggish there. So last summer... I was able to spend quite a bit of time at Russian River. And there were kayaks there, so I was there actually by myself for a week. And I had kayaked before with my girlfriend Deb, who lives on a sailboat in Emoryville. But, you know, one, we always kayak together, and she is a very good kayaker. And it's the bay, which is deep and has a lot of currents. And so actually I coasted a lot because Deb was so good. I'd do like 10 things and then I'd just coast, right? So there's a time when I was kayaking by myself.

[33:51]

So I'm not that good at it. But I gave myself a challenge to do it every day when I was there, both for exercise and to improve. So it was late summer. And so the water level was down. so shallow, and I went, I don't remember, I don't know my up and down river, but I went away, left, I went left, and I went to a section in which, oh, it must be upstream, because you had to roll really hard, and it was shallow, and there was a very slight current, and looking at it from afar, it seemed really easy, but when you got there, I was being drifting to the right and into this still area that was all muddy, and lots of plants, and my oar got stuck. And there was just enough current and wind that it was just really hard to keep going. And I noticed that I really wanted to give up really easily.

[34:57]

The sloth and torpor makes your body feel heavy or your mind dull. And so it's really easy to just give in to it. I call it the sinking ship kind of feeling. You just want to go, ah, because it seems so restful. But the great matter is clarity. And sustained clarity. So it's not, well, it feels restful. It isn't what we're doing. So it's really easy to give in to this. Especially when you're physically tired. That's why one way of preventing it is to follow the schedule when it says rest. Rest! A lot of times we're drinking more coffee because we're thinking ahead to the four periods in the afternoon. But maybe it's time to take a rest and to go take a nap instead. So that's one way of preventing it. You actually can sit upright and hold yourself upright.

[35:59]

This is actually also a prevention. And then you really, the abandoning is really the most important abandoning of sloth and torpor is not give in to it. It's so seductive, that dullness. It feels so restful. And when you can cultivate it, actually more, a little bit more stimulant, but with your meditation, right? Counting breath is great. The result of one point of concentration is that your mind will naturally... quiet down and the energy will come down, but then that's when sloth and torpor starts to happen. And so to give it a little bit more interest, we basically have to give it more energy. You want to maybe follow the breath. Note the location of the breath because it gives your mind just a little bit more to focus on in a wise way, in a skillful way to give you more energy.

[37:01]

Or be curious. Be curious about what's going on. Is the sloth and torpor really trying to cover up something you don't want to be with emotionally? And then you want to extend your effort, which is forbearance again. Don't give up. Don't go down with the sinking ship. Now, there's a part of the pond that's windy. Which one do you think that is? There's choppy waves and swells, so you can't see past the surface and see clearly, right? The clarity of the mind, the luminosity and clarity of the mind. This is restlessness and worry. Here's my girlfriend again, because she lives on a sailboat, so I figure she knows all about the wind. So I asked her, how would this work? And she said, with wind... You can't hold on to anything.

[38:04]

Everything gets distracted by it, which I thought was an excellent way of putting restlessness and anxiety. When you're restless and anxious, you're so distracted, aren't you? It's so hard to focus. It's so hard to stay where you want to stay. So the characteristic is excitement, agitation, a sense of jumpiness. Often, though, it's also about the future, obsessing about the future, regret about the past. So you have to... This is what Deb said about how you go about sailing. You have to face the wind. You can't ignore the wind when you're sailing, but you can't go straight into it or you'll be battered about. It's like a wind tunnel, she said. So you want to... Use the wind and go across it. Let it propel you. And one of the best ways is what's called tacking, which is like you want to go over there, but it's very windy.

[39:10]

So instead of going straight, because it's, again, too difficult, you want to go this way, then you want to go this way, then you want to go this way, right? So that's called tacking, I think. She had to draw me a picture and everything. So let's say, oh, she said, let's say the wind's at 12 o'clock. It's coming at you. First, you point your boat at 2 o'clock. Then you tack, which means you swing this sail across the angle to 10 o'clock. And so then the wind's taking you, right? You're using the wind in the most efficient way. So the wind pushes the sail. And you work with the wind. You don't fight it. So how can we work with the wind? of our restlessness and worrying minds. I'm going to go this kind of fast. This category is a lot about time. So in the past, you have remorse and regret.

[40:11]

That makes sense, don't you say? Don't you think? What did happen? What I could, should have done? Maybe at the result of careless acting out on one of these energies. You prevent it through knowing what it is. Again, if you hear judgment, that's always a good indication. Again, I, he, she, they should have. Abandoning, when you hear yourself have thoughts like that, stop and let it go. Go back to counting breath. In terms of the present, discontent and boredom is an indication of restlessness and anxiety. You want to cultivate contentment again. Gratitude practice. Lynch would be happy to hear that. Reflecting on what is good now. Focus on something that is likable or interesting or intentionally reflecting on what could be good and interesting.

[41:18]

Let's be curious about the breath. And again, equanimity practice, Opeka. There's a lot of worry. It's restlessness in the future. Fear and anxiety that you imagine could happen. Sometimes it's excitement. Something new but unknown. It can often masquerade as boredom. So you want to cultivate it in your body. What if cultivate feeling its energy. How does it feel in your body, this habit, a pattern of thoughts that discontent brings up? And then you want to extend on focusing now. Physical posture, breath, sensation, sitting still. Now skeptical doubt It's the area of the pond that's muddy.

[42:20]

There's so much silt and particles in the water that it's nearly impossible to see through. There is a lack of clarity. It's hard to see through the muddy water. A mind that's affected by skeptical doubt has a hard time staying confident in what it perceives. It doesn't trust because it can't see past its nose, you could say. So again, this is unwise skeptical doubt, not the great doubt. Absence of trust and confidence, lack of faith. The energy is very fragmented. Confusion, indecisiveness, spaciness, impulsiveness. And interestingly, in the teaching, there are three categories of doubt. Doubt in the Buddha. Is he for real? Not as did he exist or not, but did you really know what he was saying?

[43:23]

Doubt about the Dharma. Are the teaching really relevant? What is it with all those lists? Skillful, unskillful. Maybe on the Sangha. Maybe Zen is not for me. Maybe I should go do Vipassana. They're all so quiet. They can walk wherever they want. Again, this can be also on yourself. I myself mostly think of skeptical doubt as the inability to stay connected, especially to what we want the most. We think it's so hard to get what we want, but then when we have it or are close to it, it's often hard to know that it's already here. I was trying to think of a story for skeptical doubt around water, and again, Deb said this is a perfect story, so she gave me permission.

[44:29]

So Deb is an animal rights activist for many, many years. She loves animals. She can feel them and their emotions, right? And her greatest wish on earth, greatest, greatest wish on earth, her great matter, almost, you could say, is that she thinks that, she wishes that an animal would come up to her and speak to her and say, you are the only one we can trust and can you save us, can you help us, save us from all these animals, these humans eating us, for instance, right? That's our greatest wish, that they would talk to her and say, you're the only one that can understand us, please. So then, a couple years ago, we were up in the Tahoe area at the American River swimming. And I was actually on the shore, and I was watching her, and she was swimming in an area.

[45:31]

Then all of a sudden, she swam really fast away, and she's not a good swimmer. So I said, what happened out there? You look like you're in a panic. Are you okay? And she said... I was swimming. I was so calm over there in that pool. And then all of a sudden, something brushed my leg, and I got scared, and I ran away. I swam away. And I said, what if it's a fish going, hey, hey, I need your help. And she was like, that could have been my moment. That could have been my moment. But she reacted with fear. And doubt, right? So, three possible ways of working with doubt. These are my own. First you want to, I call them the three double Ds. First you want to doubt doubt.

[46:33]

Then you want, that means you go, oh, is it really true, this doubt? So you doubt the doubt. You want to dumb the doubt. So you want to turn it down. Just not push it away. Just turn down the volume. Not believe in it so much, basically. And then if none of that works, then you want to discuss the doubt. This is why we have practice discussions. Discuss the doubt. So here's from Suzuki Roshi. That everything is included within your mind is the essence of mind. To experience this is to have religious feeling. Even though waves arise, the essence of your mind is pure. It is just like clear water with a few waves. Actually, water always has waves. The hindrances are not a problem.

[47:38]

Waves are the practice of the water. To speak of the waves apart from water, A water apart from waves is a delusion. Water and waves are one. Big mind and small mind are one. When you understand your mind in this way, you have some security in your feeling. As your mind does not expect anything from outside, it is always filled. A mind with waves in it is not a disturbed mind but actually an amplified one. Whatever you experience is an expression of big mind. With big mind, we accept each of our experiences as if recognizing the face we see in the mirror as our own. For us, there's no fear of losing this mind.

[48:42]

There's nowhere to come or to go. There's no fear of death, no suffering from old age or sickness. Because we enjoy all aspects of life as an unfolding of big mind, we do not care for any excessive joy. So we have imperturbable composure, and it's with this imperturbable composure of big mind that we practice Zazan. When I was first adopted, we actually lived in Bangkok. And my adoptive father loved to go deep sea fishing. So every weekend we'd go off to a beach area. I don't remember where it is, probably Phuket. And I did go on the boat once with him, but I have motion sickness, so that was only once.

[49:49]

So I would spend most of my day at the pool, my sister and I. And I did not know how to swim. So I can still remember a bright pink one-piece suit with turtles on it. And then we'd have pink floaters, you know, those things you blow up. This is the 70s where they still believe those are good things for learning swimming. So my sister and I spent all day in the pool. And then when it was time to go eat our fried rice with an egg on top, a little slice of tomato... would take that off, put our towel on, and then, because we didn't like the grit, right, between our feet and our flip-flops, we'd just stand at the side and, you know, like slip your foot in the water to rinse it off. First you do the one, then you do the other. Have you guys ever done that? Just to wash it off. So one time I was doing that, next thing I knew, I was in the water.

[50:51]

And I was totally surprised. And I remember just thrashing, thrashing. And the next thing I knew, under my armpits, someone lifted me up. And this Japanese woman had jumped in and lifted me up and saved me. So later that night, when we went to dinner, my mother wanted me to go over And thank her, of course. So I went over and I thanked her. And she said, it's okay. I didn't do anything. You were in the shallow end of the pool. All I did was jump in and stood up with you. But you might have been able to. I don't know. She said, that's what I did. I just stood up with you. So... The hindrances are not a problem.

[51:54]

Your mind is not a problem. The condition you find yourself in are not a problem. Perhaps it's just a matter of having enough composure to just stand up, or in our case maybe sit up, in our place. Where you're really close, if not already, where you always wanted to be. You're safe and you're here. Thank you for your kind attention. Thank you for listening to this podcast offered by the San Francisco Zen Center. Our Dharma talks are offered at no cost 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. May we fully enjoy the Dorma.

[52:53]

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