It was a Zen story about the microphone not being turned on. But then it was, and the world was returned to its... Everything was in order, and we could all relax and be happy. And then there was another Zen story, supposedly happened about 1,100 years ago. And the last line of this story is an exchange between the teacher and the student. And then the student diligently and respectfully says, well, do you have some more teachings? And the teacher says, there's only one mystery. That's the teaching. You take it from there. So I want to read you this poem, which is... humbly called, What the Whole Thing's About.

[01:36]

This is what the whole thing is about. Got up on a cold morning, leaned out a window, no cloud, no wind, earthed flowers had held for a while, some dove somewhere, been on probation most of my life. So these moments... time for a lot. Peace, you know. Let a bucket of memory down into the well. Bring it up. Cool, cool minutes. No one stirring. No plans. Just being there. This is what the whole thing is about. William Stafford. But here's another story. Several years ago, I went back to Ireland where I grew up to teach Zen and visit my family.

[02:42]

And while I was visiting my family, my sister said about our brother, Gus. She said, you know, Gus is still smoking. He's had this serious heart attack and he's still smoking. You need to talk to him. And I wasn't smart enough to question the logic of that. I remember reading somewhere once that Suzuki Roshi said, and I wasn't smart enough to run away. So I said, okay, I'll talk to him. And over the next period of days, there were various things we were doing together, but I could never catch him by himself. Obviously, it wasn't something I could say in front of a whole bunch of people.

[03:46]

It wasn't that kind of conversation. So I watched for a moment, couldn't find one. And then after a couple of days, my sister said to me, well, Did you talk to him? I said, I haven't had a chance. I said, okay, here's what's going to happen. We're all going over to Terry's. You and Gus go together in the car by yourselves. I said, fair enough. It's a plan. I'll do it. So we're all going over to Terry's, Gustav's son. And Gus and I go out, and we get in the car. He's driving. he immediately turns on the radio and starts singing at the top of his voice. You know? Sometimes we know what we need to know, we just don't want to know it.

[04:50]

Sometimes the request of life is so imposing. It's not that intellectually we need more reasoning. Smoking is not good for your health. How many people that smoke don't know that, right? Maybe about 2%. Maybe less. And somehow or another, it felt like he got the message. That he really, he got the message all along. That he somehow picked up, I was going to be the hit man on this topic. imported heavy from the States.

[06:05]

And eventually he did stop smoking. I don't know how. I don't know if he knows how. I don't know if that was a wonderful pivotal moment or just an irrelevant annoyance. And So there's amazing human capacity. These moments, as William Stafford so elegantly and reassuringly puts it, let the bucket of memory down into the well. Bring it up. Cool, cool minutes. No one's stirring. No plans. Just being there. But he does hint at something else. I've been on probation most of my life. It's often occurred to me over the many years that I've practiced or endeavored in that direction.

[07:28]

It's not so much about we need to know more. It's something more subtle about We need to know what we already know. And we need to know or we need to discover how to put it into action. And what does that take? I just returned yesterday from Tassajara, our monastery down in the mountains behind Big Sur. where we keep quite a rigorous routine, daily schedule of meditation and practice, and takes up your time, puts you into something, someplace where the request of your life, the request of the moment,

[08:35]

the request of the world. There's a line by David White where he says, and the world's fierce need to change us. At Tassajara right now, it's quite cold. You know, at night, temperatures dropping below 30. There's another Zen story where The monk goes to the teacher and says, I would like to not be too hot or too cold. That's what I would prefer. And the teacher says, well, why don't you go to the place where it's not too hot or too cold? And the monk said, where is that? How do you get there? How do you get there? And the teacher fiercely, with a fierce, radical honesty, says, let the heat kill you, let the cold kill you.

[09:52]

But who wants to hear that? I was thinking it's more like this. We're all being sorted into heroes and cowards. And there you are. trying to elbow your way over to the coward section. I know where I belong. I'm looking for that. Not too hot, not too cold. Let me over there. But somehow, there you are. You look up at the sign and you're in the hero section. It's like that dream you have. You end up in school or in college or at work and you've no clothes on. It's like, ah. Utterly exposed to the golden wind. So something about how do we not just sing at the top of our voice?

[11:05]

How do we not just keep a level of clamor, whether it's physical busyness, whether it's a well-crafted agenda of destruction. It's like when you walk in the door of your home, immediately start checking your email, listen to your voicemail, turn on the radio, the television, your iPod, any other electronic device that can help you not to hear something. And what is that careful, thoughtful, patient involvement that inclines us towards those moments where the bucket dips down, where what we know comes to the surface?

[12:07]

And we realize it's what we've been thirsting for. And not to be naive about the process. It's not so easy to be a hero. Sometimes the skill is around meeting the coward. sensing our own vulnerability. Sometimes it is about discipline. Sometimes it's about, okay, this is what's being asked. I am intimidated or confused or distracted or agitated or resentful or fearful or bitter. yearning for something that it doesn't offer me whatever way the clamor comes into being you know what's the big mind what's the big heart that can hold that okay and this is really the essence of Zazen it is somehow to sit

[13:37]

time and devote our being to presence. Not a presence that's crafting this exquisite jewel that excludes everything else, but a presence that opens into inclusion. What is that? And that's part of the teaching of Zazen. What is the relationship to human existence that can open like that, that can have that sense of inclusion, that can have that sense of willingness to connect to whatever arises? It's beautiful in our moments of stillness. But maybe there's a deep truth in the fact that we've been... and are on probation most of the time.

[14:39]

Well, I'll just wait and see. I'll wait and see how this turns out. I'll just hold back a little bit. I'll just press on it a little more to see if it becomes more in align with my agenda. And then I would say, almost blessedly, somehow, even when we're singing at the top of our voice, the message gets across. How utterly amazing. What good news. That we're singing at the top of our voice because we've already got the message. We just don't like it. No, thank you. When I was four years old, you know, I went to school and I came home at lunchtime and my mother said, how was it?

[15:45]

And I said, it was okay. And she said, well, eat your lunch. You have to go back. And I said, no, no, I don't want to go back. It was okay. Like, that's enough. Yeah. What is it to not be on probation? What is it that that okayness can start to ripen towards this is my whole life? You know, we think, okay, I'm going to do a thousand. I'm going to be one of those like great Zen people, you know, who can sit there and they're so solid and they're so upright and they're so courageous and they're so wise. And you could chop their head off with a single blow and they wouldn't even care. Yep, that's me.

[16:46]

For the next 25 minutes. After that, well, I'm out of here. Then I can breathe again. That was great. I've done my duty. I've taken my medicine. And not to knock it. We learn something there. Maybe we learn something about what we're capable of. Maybe the very willingness, even for a measured limited time, that we're willing to move in that direction. That we're willing to allow the solid world that's being created to start to melt, to start to flow, to start to become ideas coming and going, and images coming and going, and feelings coming and going, and even sensations of body coming and going.

[18:04]

And as something melts, it's like the bucket can dip into that melting liquid. and pull up a moment, a moment that's just itself, like a cool morning with the air still, where maybe a dove flies over, or maybe not, or maybe just the light coming in the window. Or maybe just noticing the book in your partner's eyes that somehow, even though you thought you knew everything about them, you hadn't noticed before. Or something about yourself. Hmm.

[19:10]

Maybe that moment in the car with my brother when he sang so loud. was an exquisite success, had nothing to do with failure, had nothing to do with limitation or defeat. And how amazing, all of these things, it's not like one day we're over here, we're an absolute, well, sometimes it is, we're an absolute wreck. And then some other day, for the whole day, were a transcendent Buddha walking in a field of Dharma flowers. Usually they intertwine. Usually they're mixed together. In fact, one of the attributes that we discover and explore in practice is something that we might call pausing.

[20:16]

Right in the midst of activity, pause, notice, connect, abide. Can we discover through our own deliberate efforts how to dip dine in any moment? Can you dip dine into your moment of agitation? What is this world that has come to be and has brought about this state? Who populates it? What sense of self lives in the middle? Is it a naked self that's woken up in college with a teacher staring at you? Is it a child holding its mother's hand.

[21:18]

You know, to dip down in any moment and to feel and to touch the passion of the moment. You know, this is how we discover how to become a state of being that can embrace everything. That we dip down And behold that particular state of being. Can you hold and meet and experience and be taught by your own fearful bitterness? Can you dip down and hold your own extraordinary selfless generosity? You know, usually the negative states hang around. They're more troublesome. They're more unnerving, unsettling. And our moments of generosity, our moments of kindness, our moments of inclusion, they come with a state of ease.

[22:30]

So it just swims on through. It's like, hmm, nothing special. And then somehow we end up with this skewed notion. It's so easy to miss those quiet moments of stillness. It's so easy to miss that moment where you paused and said, no, go ahead. The generosity, the consideration. that attending to that creates a particular kind of characteristic that must be true because it has a Sanskrit name for itself.

[23:39]

And a Pali name. It's considered to be one of the factors... in promoting awakening. Pamoja. And here's a poem about it. And of course, since it's a Buddhist factor, it only makes sense that the poem would be written by a Palestinian Muslim. Lovers of Hunting. and beginners seeking your prey. Don't aim your rifles at my happiness, which isn't worth the price of the bullet you'd waste on it. What seems to you so nimble and fine, like a fawn, and flees every which way, like a partridge, isn't happiness.

[24:43]

Trust me, my happiness bears no relation to happiness. I'll read it again. Lovers of hunting and beginners seeking your prey, don't aim your rifles at my happiness, which isn't worth the price of the bullet you'd waste on it, but seems to you so nimble and fine like a fawn and flees every which way like a partridge, isn't happiness, trust me. my happiness, there's no relation to happiness. The sense of being, the sense of letting the moment crack open and reveal itself, whether it's charged and passionate in a solid, convincingly defined world, or whether it's silent and still,

[25:51]

dipping deep into momentary existence. Whether it's flowing back and forth, watching the interplay of interacting with the conditions of the moment. Any one of them, somehow pausing, connecting, engaging that. Just that. As it is. To not be on probation. To not immediately calculate what would make it better. Or how to avoid it. Or to come up with what you would need to add to it or subtract to it so that you could be thoroughly committed to being present for it. Something that doesn't hold those arisings as utterly convincing.

[27:06]

And allows that moment to shine. Pamoja. Sometimes translated as gladness. Glad to be alive. And Taha Muhammad Ali says, but don't mistake this for the usual notion of happiness. Don't think this is something you're going to hunt down with your skills and determined effort. Don't think this is something you're going to grasp and package and carry around with you as one of your possessions. Trust me. It's not that kind of happiness. Yes, we all want that kind of happiness. But this is not it. This is more singular.

[28:10]

This is more unconditioned. And extraordinarily, this is more available. Because it isn't requiring special accomplishments or experiences. It's requiring a shift and how it's held, the moment that's already here. It's requiring a mind, an awareness, a consciousness that can open up and hold even the clamor that arises with the moment. So Zazen, formally, is to sit down and be present for all of that.

[29:12]

Because something in us knows what that's about. It's the very thing within us that knows that sets us singing at the top of our voice. And it's listening carefully to us singing at the top of our voice. It helps us discover how not to be trapped within that. How not to live a life where we're always on probation. Waiting for something to turn the way it needs to. So that we can exhale. So that we can say, this is good. so that something in us can be glad. Something in us can blossom. Something in us can be thoroughly willing to be what it already is.

[30:16]

Zazen is the direct expression of that. And Zazen is also The endless ways we miss the mark. The endless ways we subtract something from that, add something to that, distract ourselves from it, don't quite notice it. So it's this extraordinary mystery that the teacher says to the monk. You get one mystery. It's called being alive. And from there, everything unpacks. Everything is like a hand turning outward like a gift. Everything teaches both how to separate and how to connect.

[31:30]

So we study something, we explore something, we be something on our cushion. And then we stand up and we enter the world. We enter the life we're already living. And we enter it as a mystery. How can I know and not know? How can I know so thoroughly that it frightens me and I want to sing at the top of my voice and I do at times? How can I know so thoroughly that I know it's the most precious thing and my life is devoted to it? Even though

[32:36]

It doesn't quite look like that at times. This is the great mystery of our human life. That our wisdom and our foolishness are intertwined. And then all the lore of the Buddha teachings, of the teachings of awakening. All of the skillfulness. How do you prioritize your life? How do you craft your life so that these moments don't happen once every hundred years? Tragically, often these moments happen for us in a moment of tragedy.

[33:36]

We've glued the world together into a solid world, and the world in its fierceness tears it open. And the bottom falls out. And there we are. We can't deny its fluidity. We can't deny its lack of solidity. Sadly, usually we're shocked. wait a minute, I don't know how to be here. I don't know how to be in a world that has no bottom. How do we set up a relationship to our life that allows us to get close enough to the well to dip down into it? What kind of priorities do we have to make? What kind of adjustments? How does it affect our relationships? What we choose to do with our life.

[34:40]

And then the inner work. What is the inner work that supports it? Should I meditate for six hours every day? Or should I just make a habit as I go through my life? Every half hour or so, Just dip down. Pause, notice, contact, engage. Is there some inclining of the mind, the heart, that stimulates the inspiration, the dedication, the motivation? All these These are the teachings of the spiritual way. These are the teachings that all the religions try to answer. Here's another poem by Taha Muhammad Ali.

[35:54]

Neither music, fame, nor wealth, nor even poetry itself can provide consolation for life's brevity. Or the fact that King Lear is merely 80 pages long and comes to an end. And for the thought that one might suffer greatly on account of a rebellious child. Love is what's magnificent. But I, you, and others, most likely, are ordinary people. I would say, for each of us to ask ourselves.

[37:00]

Not so much as an intellectual endeavor, more as deep a stirring and involvement as we can. Something we get in touch with when we see and feel ourselves in the midst of an intense emotion. When we're engaged in something, as if our life depended on it. In a way, in that moment, it does. Can we tap into that? Can that become a resource? Can we align with that? This is the great mystery. Can we align with it? Can we learn from it? Can we see that it's always with us, that it's always presenting in front of us like a hand turned open, turned outward like a gift.

[38:11]

Asking us to both be exactly who we are and not be fooled by it. Asking us to be exactly who we are and not on probation. Not holding our breath. Not singing at the top of our voice. Who can do such a thing? How is such a way of being brought forth? The one mystery. Thank you.

[38:54]

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