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. Good morning everybody. I would like to start with a poem that I'm considering perhaps a thematic poem of the practice period for the time being. I read it on Wednesday when I gave the lecture then to start off the six-week practice period that we have just embarked on this week. And I'd like to read it again, continuing to kind of set a particular tone and theme. This is by E.E. Cummings. Love is a place. And through this place of love move with brightness of peace all places.

[01:00]

Yes is a world. And in this world of yes, live skillfully curled all worlds. Love is a place. and through this place of love move with brightness of peace all places. Yes is a world, and in this world of yes, live skillfully curled all worlds. So the theme of our practice period is at home, in the boundless hearts and we are studying what is known as the Brahma Viharas. The Brahma Viharas are four loving and boundless states and they are considered limitless.

[02:05]

And these limitless states are kindness, compassion, appreciative joy, and equanimity. And they are innate to us. They're not external to us. They are innate. They're part of our being. And the Brahma Viharas are considered the Buddha's heart teachings, the essential teachings of the heart, and the ones that most connect us with our desire for happiness. So for the next six weeks, a number of us are together exploring what is it to cultivate, embody, and live in these boundless heart states. In case you don't know who I am, I'm still trying to figure that out for myself. I go by the name of Tenzin David Zimmerman, and I am a monk priest here at City Center. I've lived here about 20 years, and currently I'm serving as the abiding abbot of this temple.

[03:13]

So you're here for a special day. This is the first... day-long sitting of the practice period. So occasionally we take the opportunity to put everything aside, to come and take the entire day to just sit together and study our lives. And so our practice is going to be focusing on meditation stabilization. And that is how it is that we can settle ourselves on ourselves. Settle ourselves on ourselves. Of course, you're wondering, which self am I settling on to which self here? That's part of the exploration that we're doing together. And we're also finding ways to settle ourself with the support of the Brahmaviharas. And for those of you who are not familiar with the term Brahmavihara, it's made of two words, actually. Pali, Brahma, basically you can easily translate as divine or heavenly.

[04:16]

and virhara as an abode or dwelling place or home. So, brahmi-vihara can be directly translated as divine abode or heavenly abode. And essence, it's kind of the psychological dwelling place of those who are spiritually mature. And they are really the foundations, if you will, for peacefully abiding in our life. even in the midst of challenge and difficulty and continuous change, uncertainty. I don't know if any of you have that experience in your life. If so, maybe this would resonate with you. And if you don't, I am very, very happy for you. Sympathetic joy with Dita for you. So anyhow, those of us who are sitting today have made the opportunity to take up the Zen practice of what we say is setting aside all external involvements and letting the 10,000 things be.

[05:23]

That's a pretty great thing, huh? You don't have to do anything. You just get to sit all day. Put everything else aside and just sit here as best we can. So we form the intentions to put aside our other obligations, our other commitments, and make the study of our mind, our body, and our heart their priority for the day. How often do we have a chance to do that? And what I'm going to be doing through this talk is offer an orientation to abiding with confidence and steadfastness in the mind-body during this extended day of practice together. So we're just going to be sitting with the experience that we're sitting with. whatever we're experiencing in the mind-body, just being with it. And also being with whatever is in our heart. And I'm going to say our mind-body-heart are not two, three separate things.

[06:26]

They're all one. And it may help us to distinguish them initially, but in time we discover it's all one thriving, beating, amazing life force just coming forward in some way. So we're going to take a chance to step out of our usual thinking mind and come home to the heart and rest there. To feel what we're feeling. And in feeling what we're feeling, actually recognize that we share humanity with others. Other beings who are also feeling. And also to recognize our shared being together. And we could say that compassion is the natural responsiveness of our aware being, of our innate capacity of being aware, or you could say, awareing.

[07:28]

Awareingly meeting the world and awareingly meeting each other. And when we meet each other from this compassionate space, we can experience happiness. And as I said in the talk on Wednesday night, the way I'm defining happiness, because I know many people have different definitions of happiness that keep changing, and that's perfectly fine. But right now, the one I'm entertaining is happiness is the knowing of our own being. The knowing of our own being. The knowing of our own Buddha nature, you could say. And love, then, For those who are interested in love, what is this place of love? I'm defining it as the knowing of our shared being. Love is the knowing of our shared being. So before we can make the space, offer the space for others to be who they are, first we have to be able to make the space for ourselves to be who we are, right?

[08:42]

to feel our whole being, to give ourselves permission to experience our whole being and embrace that experience with openness and tenderness. So this is part of what we're doing today. Every night, as I lay in bed, before I turn off the light, I say a particular verse or gata to myself. This evening, as I sleep, I vow with all beings to still all things and to put an end to confusion. And in the morning, when I wake up, the first thing I do after turning off the alarm clock is sitting up in bed, touching my feet to the floor, putting my hands in gaso and saying, This morning, as I wake, I vow with all beings to see each thing as it is and not to forsake the world.

[09:49]

So these are actually two gathas that I understand we kind of received from Thich Nhat Hanh when he was here, I think it was about three decades ago. He came and he offered Zen Center a bunch of these verses or gathas for mindfulness practices that we could take up throughout today. So I decided I wanted to incorporate these two. This evening as I sleep, I vow with all beings to still all things and put an end to confusion. And this morning as I wake, I vow with all beings to see each thing as it is and not to forsake the world. So this ending confusion by seeing things as it is or seeing reality as it is, seeing reality clearly. That is the practice of the Buddha Dharma in a nutshell. It's all there, right there.

[10:52]

Not understanding the nature of reality is confusing. And confusion for us is experienced as suffering. because not understanding why it is we are suffering is frightening and destabilizing. So as a result, we often feel unsettled, lost, forsaken, angry, anxious. Any of you experience those? When you're confused? Yeah? Okay, good. I'm not the only one. And so what the Buddha taught... was a means of ending suffering through understanding the cause of our suffering, the cause of our confusion, and the conditions or the ways in which we could alleviate our confusion and suffering. Alleviate our confusion through clear seeing, clear view.

[11:58]

And one of the things the Buddha pointed out is that what we usually think of as suffering is a matter of actually what is out there. We often have this perception, suffering is caused by something out there, something external to me. That's our usual way of thinking. If I could just get rid of that external thing, then I'd be okay and I wouldn't suffer. If I can manipulate the world around me, get everything just right, then I'll be okay within that world. And the Buddha's like, mm-mm-mm. He says, Turn the light that you're looking outward with your flashlight going, oh, there's the suffering, there's the suffering, there, there, wherever. Turn it around. Turn it inward. Studying how we create our own suffering. I'm sorry to tell you that. And we do that by resisting, by grasping, or turning away from whatever our experience is in the present moment.

[13:04]

And we have myriad ways of doing that. I know I'm very, very creative finding numerous ways of resisting, distracting, or grabbing on to other things that distract myself. So the point is, it's how we relate to events and experiences that determine our suffering. Our relationship to the experiences determines our suffering. So suffering builds with, it begins with and builds with a process of separation of ourselves in relationship to a particular event or experience. So if we take the time to carefully study and look and notice that Before suffering arises, there's actually just a neutral experience, just an event that happens, right?

[14:09]

For example, I'm sitting in zazen in meditation, there's a sensation in my me. There's just a straightforward description of an event, sensation, right? And you could say that sensation is just a series of vibrations you know, fluctuating, varying degrees of expression of this flowing energy in my body. That's all it is. Just a description of that flowing energy in whatever way it's expressing itself in the moment. And then, almost immediately following that, there's a slight separation in which we create a subject-object division. A something that is experiencing something else. A me that is experiencing that. Now, if this experience is pleasant, we want more of it.

[15:10]

And if it's unpleasant, we want it to stop and go away. So based on this, we have a reaction to the experience, where the reaction is. It might be leaning in if we like it, if we want more of it. and it might be pulling away if we want less of it. So studying that impulse, at what point is that impulse to lean in? We perceive something, we perceive phenomenon, and then we have this tendency to just lean into it or lean away from it or turn away from it. So one of the first things we want to do is study that. What's happening and what's my relationship to what's happening? So suffering arises in that rather than seeing the event as karmically neutral, it's neither good or bad in and of itself, we project an emotional and interpretive valence onto it that isn't inherent in the event itself.

[16:14]

Projecting onto the experience. It's our doing. So if you're thinking about the sensation in the knee, and it's unpleasant, and maybe you're going to define it as pain, you're going to say, this is terrible. I want this to stop. I shouldn't be feeling this. There's something wrong. My leg's going to fall off. I'm going to die here. The Dohan isn't ringing the bell. Why aren't they ringing the bell? They must hate me. That's why they're not ringing the bell. They know I'm in pain. The world sucks. So we take this little thing of sensation and we've just made a whole other world out of it. Worlds within worlds we end up creating all the time. And so we energize and we reify the experience by reacting to it. We make it bigger. That's what I mean by energizing it. We make it bigger. We feed it by reacting to it. And allowing the impulse, the initial impulse, to pull us away in some way.

[17:22]

Or change and determine how we're going to engage or relate to this neutral event. And the thing is, much of the time, this impulse to grab or pull away is unconscious. We're not aware of it. It's just happening kind of under the surface. We're oblivious to it. And it's happening as often from a place of habitual reactivity, habitual habit patterns. We did it in the past, and we kind of just, this is the way we react to things. If you don't like spiders, every time you see a spider, you're just going to have that reaction, right? And even if you look and find out that spider's not a spider, it's actually a bit of lint on the floor, you're like, oh, oh. You still have that reactivity based upon your misperception of reality in that moment. It was habitual. That's just what happened for you. without intention. So if we could just take the time before the chain reaction or reactivity kicks in to see what's actually going on, to stop and create the space to choose how it is that we want to respond rather than react, then we're creating the space of freedom.

[18:42]

It's already there. We're stepping into the space of freedom, you could say. And that freedom is a freedom that doesn't perpetuate suffering by reifying or energizing the initial impulse that gave rise to it in the first place. So back to the gatha I shared. This evening, as I sleep, I vow with all beings to still all things and to put an end to confusion. And in the morning... This morning as I wake, I vow with all beings to see each thing as it is and not to forsake the world. So another name for this stilling and stopping of all things is shamatha. And another name for the seeing each thing as it is is vipassana. Vipassana, depending on if you're using it. Pali or Sanskrit, and I always get them confused.

[19:44]

So if I do that, please forgive me, those who know. So Vipassana is to have insight or an understanding or clear seeing how things really are. And Samatha and Vipassana are the core meditation practices of Buddhism, including Zen, even though I'll say a little bit more about that in a moment. In order to end confusion, and not abandon the world that's in need, we need to stop our usual busy activity, to still our bodies and minds and make the effort to see things clearly as it is so we can discern what needs to happen. We can discern what would be an appropriate response in this moment to whatever the situation is. And this is actually the root of the compassionate vow of all the ancestors, the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas throughout space and time. To end confusion.

[20:46]

To end their own confusion first, right? About what is the nature of reality and what is their own true nature. And then to support others to also end their own confusion. That's what when we say to save all beings means. We're just supporting them to see how delusion arises for them. We can't do it for them. Each one of us has to do that work for ourselves. Oh, if I only wish we could just, like, pull the lens off, you know, your mind, you know, if it was that easy. But it is actually in a certain way. In another way, it's not. But we can't do it for you. You still have to do it yourself. And so, from the beginning, from Buddha's first and four noble truths, when he taught those, all the way through the Mahana teachings of the Bodhisattva practice, this stopping and seeing It's the heart. It's the central backbone of our practice together. Another way to translate shamatha is as calm abiding or peaceful abiding.

[21:51]

And I mentioned to those on Wednesdays who were here that we're in a practice period, a Sigmatic practice period. And in Japanese, the term that we use for practice period is called ango. And ango translates as peaceful abiding or calm abiding. So we're in a shamatha period right now. And in order to be peacefully abiding, we have to stop our discursive thinking. Not so much stop, but step out of our discursive thinking and chattering mind and allow the mind to come to rest. And When the mind comes to rest, what we notice is there's a deeper sense of happiness, contentment, ease, satisfaction. And that satisfaction comes from the very fact that our mind is no longer being tossed about by afflictions or craving or hostility or aversion in some way.

[22:57]

Until we have been able to achieve shamatha, you could say our mind is dysfunctional. That means it kind of feels broken, it kind of feels heavy, it's rigid, narrow, dark, prone to grouchiness. At least mine is. Do you guys have the same thing? Yeah? Okay. I'm very happy not to be the only one who has this experience. I'm talking to myself as much as I'm talking to you. So the whole point of shamatha is to make our mind serviceable. or make it able to serve a particular function that we choose. This means that however you wish to put your mind to service, your mind is now going to be fit for the purpose. And this is what bodhisattvas do. We have a purpose to save all beings, as bodhisattvas. If our mind isn't settled and quiet and focused enough, we can't stay on task with that purpose.

[24:03]

So first we have to cultivate a still mind and a directed mind in order to stay on purpose because there's going to be a lot of obstacles along the way. And the Buddha said, what we frequently think about and dwell upon becomes the shape of our mind. The shape of our mind shapes our world experience. So in other words, whatever you give your mind to, whatever you give your attention to is going to shape your mind. and shape your experience somehow. So if you give your mind to negative views and negative interpretations, focusing on what's missing or what's wrong, like I do sometimes, I have a tendency to walk into a room and I can tell you what's wrong with the room. And our mind gets shaped by that. It's a habit pattern. Or we can choose to shape our mind with positive experiences. Wholesome experiences. Things that lend themselves to gratitude, appreciation, friendliness.

[25:08]

And then our experience of our world becomes more inclined and colored by that. So it's important to study what are you pouring into your mind and what are you pouring your mind into. What kind of, for example, social media. are you pouring into your mind? What kind of news, movies, books, popular culture, are you just absorbing and pouring in, mindlessly in many cases, just watching and taking in the violence, all these kinds of behaviors that actually don't enliven us in some way? So you get to choose. In many cases, not always, but in many cases, what it is you're pouring into your mind. And the mind's going to take shape whatever you pour it into. For example, like a vase. If you have a square vase, you pour water into it, it's going to have a square shape. The water itself is going to take the shape of that vase. And if it's around, the water's going to take that shape.

[26:11]

So what shape do you want your mind to be, relatively speaking? So we can think of the practices of shamatha and vipassana as basically early practices of Zen. And Zen is taught as response to suffering. So Zen is sitting down, sitting still, sitting upright, concentrating on our breath, and just being with the experience of breathing, being breathed, if you will. And in Zen, you'll hear a lot of instructions about how to sit upright, how to sit zazen. Dogen, the founder of a particular school of Zen, has lots of instructions about how to do that. If you come here on a Saturday morning, that's one of the first things you probably did, right? Get Zazen instruction, receive Zazen instructions. How do I sit upright? How do I take the posture, the container of an awake, alert, open body that supports having the container of an open, alert, awake mind?

[27:15]

Upright, right? The primary form of zazen, according to Dogen, is something called shikantaza. And that's a Japanese term. It roughly translates as just sitting. And if you want to be more precise, shikantaza is just, only, exactly, precisely sitting. Just, only, exactly, precisely sitting. So right there we can see the relationship in that word shikantaza between shamatha and vipassana. As we unpack those four characters. Shi refers to shamatha, the character. Kan, the character, refers to vipassana. Ta means being and za means just there. Taza sometimes means hitting the mark. exactly getting to the point, meeting this point, just as it is, right?

[28:21]

So shika and taza, right? Pointing to the inseparability of the mindfulness of shamatha and the awareness of vipassana. They're one, and that's what we're cultivating, this oneness of experience. So we abandon our discursive thinking and enter into a profound state of openness, in which there is no discursive interference. And when we do that, vipassana, insight, just naturally arises or is known to be there. It's not something we make happen. It's kind of like, again, pulling the curtain aside, letting things settle, and you just automatically see clearly what is. And then when we do this, when we're able to settle ourselves on ourselves, allow the mind to settle, allow insight to arise, as Suzuki Roshi says, we are Buddha. When you are you, Zen is Zen.

[29:26]

So, shamatha, we often can speak about as resting, resting in the present moment, resting in nowness, resting in the qualities of this present moment, opening and experiencing and concentrating in an undistracted way. What is this now that's arising for me? And the request of zazen is just to rest there, just to be present in a relaxed, open, spacious way. Resting and opening. Resting and opening. So as we sit, We study, how can I rest a little bit more deeply? And in resting a little bit more deeply, how can I open a little bit more completely? So shamatha is concerned with bringing about attention, stability, and vividness. And what are the conditions for creating? These conditions are beneficial in allowing insight into the true nature of reality.

[30:44]

One of the books that I'm encouraging folks who are taking the practice period to read is Alan Wallace's book on the four immeasurables. And in it, he emphasizes three aspects of shamatha practice, relaxation, stability, and vividness, and also nine traditional stages of shamatha. And what I thought I'd do is just a quick run-through. of these three emphases on shamatha and also these nine stages. So those of you who are sitting today, you can kind of look for yourself. What is my experience? How is this meeting my experience as I'm sitting here? So the first of the three emphasis in shamatha practice is relaxation. Relaxing and resting the body and the mind. Just relaxing as awareness, resting in the space of awareness. So our concentration is not going to be forced or tensed, but relaxed.

[31:51]

We're just allowing our awareness to rest in the field of tactile sensations. Watching a stream go by, for example. Watching the stream of our breath go by. Just being aware of the inhale and the exhale, the changing sensations of that experience. and then allowing ourselves to soften into that a little bit more deeply. And any tension that we might have in the body, we kind of could possibly breathe into that space. See if in breathing with it, into it, does it open and relax and release any more? Just a little bit more. And then also at the same time, as we relax in the body, we also allow the mind to relax. to let go of its usual habit of entertaining itself or planning or negotiating with various thoughts. We just release that habit pattern. And then the next stage is stability. Establishing stability within the relaxation.

[32:56]

So at this point, we can notice the impulse or kind of the gross excitation to pull away or to lean in. to a particular experience. To pull away from the object of intention and get distracted in some way. So again, when this happens, what we're trying to do is just redirect mind's attention back to where we want it to be. It's not a striving way. We're just trying to maintain a sense of continuity, a sense of relationship with our object of awareness. That's continual. And doing this again and again, whenever the mind wanders, to bring it back. That habit pattern of doing that over time cultivates a stability of awareness. We stay on point. And as we practice, we're going to be practicing with this kind of energetic quality of focused attention and relaxed attention. The Buddha spoke of a lute and how you fine-tune the strings of a lute.

[34:01]

And not too tight and not too relaxed. Otherwise, you can't play the music. So we find for ourselves as we're sitting here, what's this balance of energy and relaxation? Staying open as best we can. And then the third quality, emphasis, is on vividness. We want to infuse our practice here with a deeper sense of intention and purpose. Why it is that we're doing this in the first place? And when we infuse our practice with intention, a kind of a quality, the vividness is a quality of brightness, of aliveness, of freshness. The distinction kind of comes through all the phenomenon that we experience. Our perception begins to pop. Many people have this experience after they've been sitting for a day or more. They suddenly go outside and suddenly all the colors become more vibrant and alive and intense.

[35:02]

They never realize, wow, I didn't know the world was this bright. And that's that vividness that comes with shamatha over time. So very briefly, the nine stages of shamatha. And again, the shamatha, the point of shamatha is a tool for honing our attention. And I want to note that the word attention gives kind of a hint into how we might look at this particular practice of shamatha. Attention comes from the Latin, attendari, which is a compound of ad, meaning to or towards, and tendari, meaning to stretch. So attention is stretching, a stretching of the knowing, the knowing nature of mind, towards a particular thought or object. It's more, not that they're two separate things, but like the light is focused. The aperture of awareness becomes focused.

[36:03]

The beam of light of awareness becomes focused onto a particular object that's arising in this moment, or whatever you decide to set it to. And most of the time, we start with a breath, our breath. So that's the first step, directing attention to a particular object, identifying what is that object. We sit down. We make the attention to focus on the breath. Also, we could use images. We can use mantrams. We can use just the felt sense or tone of a particular mental state that we want to cultivate. For example, kindness, compassion, joy. We can also focus on those. But eventually, the kind of ultimate meditation is to focus on the mind itself, focus on the nature of mind. That becomes our object of meditation. And so we start with the breath, focus on it, and then notice whenever the mind begins to wander, we bring it back. And what we're going to notice probably the first time you sit down is it's very hard to keep the mind on the breath.

[37:09]

You have it on for a few seconds, and this is basically this stage says you have it on for about 5 to 30 seconds if you're lucky, and then the mind wanders. And then you bring it back. If you capture or realize that the mind has wondered. The second step is continuous attention. So maintain continual contact with the object. So staying focused on the breath without forgetting it or losing contact with it. At the same time, this focus attention is relaxed. Again, it's not a straining effort. We're just remembering, what's my attention here? Smirti. The word for mindfulness, the root of it, means remembering. What am I doing? What's my purpose? Come back to that. Return to the breath. And then the third step is repeated attention. Again and again.

[38:13]

Trying to be consistent with maintaining our awareness. So we may have now more of the experience where we're maybe a little bit more... relating to the breath or having a little bit more constant contact to the object of awareness than not. So we're beginning to get a little bit more into the flow of things. Sometimes there's a water metaphor that's used for these different stages of meditation. And the water metaphor used for these first three stages is that of a waterfall. For example, you're in a high mountain crater with a lake in it. and the crater is kind of holding the water, and yet there's lots of broken bits around the crater, and so all the water is kind of pouring out over the sides in the waterfalls. And this is kind of the nature of our usual mind. Things are just flowing out, and it's hard to keep it contained in it. The next two stages, stage four and five, is close attention, being able to maintain attention for extended periods of time,

[39:22]

This is kind of the moment, the power of mindfulness, where we're really in the flow. We're really in it a little bit longer. And the impulse to move away is not so intense, not so great. It has lost a little bit of energy. And also tamed attention, which is number five. So being able to kind of create more of a sense of vividness. And the object itself, the breath, becomes more noticeable and the impulse again to move away has lessened and this is kind of the metaphor used for this is of a river flowing really quickly through a gorge right so there's a lot of energy in the water it's really going fast but you've got enough to kind of maintain at least that energy somewhat and keep it somewhat focused so it's not getting out of hand and then stages six and seven pacified attention and fully pacified.

[40:24]

So this is where the kind of impulse, pacified attention, the impulse to move away has settled down, become quiet. And fully pacified is the mind is basically still. There's no wind anymore disturbing the surface of the water. And sometimes the water metaphor used for this is the river of awareness is... It's a little bit more open space. And it's just moving slowly through a valley. So there's still movement. There's still some energy that's flying there. But it's kind of settled. And then point number eight is single-pointed attention. And this is concentration or samadhi. This is the point that we basically have the one taste of mind and object. just being non-separate whatsoever. And the water metaphor used for this is often that of the ocean.

[41:28]

And the waves of the ocean have basically come to stillness, more or less. And then the final point is attentional balance. And this is the final stage of shamatha. And this is kind of a true experience of effortlessness. And this is basically, again, this wide open ocean. But the ocean is so still that its surface is like a mirror. There's no movement whatsoever. And because it's mirror-like, it reflects everything clearly, distinctly, without any obscuration or any distortion, like a clear, still body of water reflecting the sky. The body of water is not disturbed by whatever passes through the sky in any way. So today we're studying how to allow the waters of our being, including the waters of our thoughts and emotions, to calm down, to settle, perhaps to become still and transparent.

[42:39]

And when we allow the waters of our mind to become transparent, when the silt of thoughts and emotions settle, what we notice is there is already a light, a brightness that is always there, that's always illuminating the water. And it's able to shine clearly through everything, illuminating all experience that passes through the water. And all these karmic impulses in the forms of emotional reactivity and habitual thinking are less inclined to stir the water, stir the water of the mind, and end up, therefore, obscuring the mind. So we're practicing to maintain an openness to life. Whatever it is, how can we meet our life with a relaxed, open, receptive posture? To say yes to all experience, whatever it is.

[43:42]

It doesn't mean you have to like it. Zen is not about liking things. Sorry to disappoint you all. You might not even like Zen. But the question is, is it liberative? Is this practice liberative? Does it in any way free you of suffering just a little bit? By being able to hold your experience in a container that's loving, compassionate, caring, spacious. And we can also use the Brahma Piharas as objects of our meditation. We set our attention to single-mindedly concentrate on cultivating kindness to other people or compassion for ourselves and for other people or joy, taking joy in the experience that other people have. And when we do this again, we're shaping our minds.

[44:45]

What is the shape that you would like your mind to have? And if we lose contact with our intention at any point, we notice, ah, this has happened. And rather than judging ourselves or berating ourselves, which is so common to us, we can meet ourselves with friendliness, kindness. Be friendly with the experience and then not turn away from it. Say, yes, I see this is happening. And stay with it. even if it's difficult, the suffering, with compassion. And if it's something positive, stay with it with joy, as long as we're not being triggered, to experience peace with it. So this is what we'll be doing for the rest of the day, for those of you who are sitting, taking up these practices of shamatha and vipassana, focusing on the shamatha part, making that your emphasis for today. And those of you who are not staying for sitting or going home today, you can practice this on your way throughout the day.

[45:52]

Just take a moment throughout your day to just stop. Come to stillness. To rest. Right? And focus on the breath and relax into a natural awareness. You can do that at a stoplight. You can do that if you're washing the dishes. Just stop for a moment. throughout the day just take these mindful breathing pauses build them into your day knowing that you're shaping your experience whenever you do that to be more to have the capacity to be wider more loving more able to meet life in all its variety so I'll finish up with reading the poem again love is a place And through this place of love, move with brightness of peace all places. Yes is a world.

[46:55]

And in this world of yes, live skillfully curled all worlds. 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, please visit sfzc.org and click Giving. May we fully enjoy the Dharma.

[47:34]

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