This podcast is offered by San Francisco Zen Center on the web at sfcc.org. Our public programs are made possible by donations from people like you. This morning I planned to talk about Zazen. Is that sound okay? Yeah? Seems kind of light to me. When I was thinking about what to say at this talk, in particular what to say about zazen, I thought, well, zazen is big mind, the mind that's non-grasping, attentive, equanimous, holding, engaging, experiencing, small mind. So anyway, that was my working definition.

[01:02]

But you can take so many of those words and look at it as what is the process of non-grasping? What is the process of attention? What is the process of equanimity? And what exactly is small mind? I think we all know what to be caught up in selfishness, in particular, fixation, compulsion, feels like, thinks like, acts like. And I'd like to come at this topic through the notion of love. Several years ago, I taught a workshop with a Jungian analyst, Polly Young Isendrath, on the topic of love, which was very interesting because we had completely different notions as to what love was.

[02:12]

And we were both sort of perplexed by each other's notion. Polly said that love was that... alignment that happens within us when we're asking of ourselves to bring forth a kind, compassionate, caring response to the world, to others, to the beloved. And I said, I thought love was kind of intoxication, where we dare to think and feel that the mythologies that we have created around intimacy, this will be the perfect love, this will be the perfect lover, this perfect relationship,

[03:32]

and all that that quickens for us. The way it quickens our heart and draws our mind along, whether it agrees or not. And then since we taught that workshop, I've come to feel and think that they both play a role for us. That something in us knows the nobility of that request of compassion, kindness, and caring for others. And something in us has this adamant passion, this reckless resolve to be fully alive.

[04:33]

Not that we want exactly to pay the price that that's going to ask of us, but something in us all the same. It is drawing into taking the risk. And I would say that in Zazen, there's a very similar process going on. Something in us brings us to the engagement of Zazen. And I would say, we can say Zazen has both a formless attribute. It's this non-grasping, economist attention, whatever you're doing, whatever condition you're in, whatever circumstance you're in.

[05:41]

The same request is there. And then there's a very particular yogic activity that involves sitting upright, that involves lengthening and opening the body, letting the breath settle and deepen, and letting the experience, the thoughts and feelings of mind and heart flow. So the yogic siddhi posture and the every moment, every experience of our life. And that this passion play of both dimensions of love to bear in that situation, whether it's the everydayness of Zazen or the yogic particularity.

[06:42]

And I'd like to start, enter that dangerous territory with the poem. And I'm sure some of you know this, and those of you who don't, I hope you enjoy it. It's Billy Collins' Aimless Love. This morning, as I walked along the lake shore, I fell in love with the wren, and later in the day with the mouse the cat had dropped onto the dining room table. In the shadows of the autumn evening, I fell for a seamstress still at her machine in the tailor's window, and later for a bowl of broth, steam rising like smoke from a naval battle. This is the best kind of love, I thought, without recompense, without gifts or unkind words, without suspicion or silence on the telephone. The love of a chestnut, the jazz cap, and one hand on the wheel.

[07:50]

No lust, no slam of the door, the love of a miniature orange tree, the clean white shirt, the hot evening shower, the highway that cuts across Florida. No waiting, no huffiness or rancor, just a twinge every now and then for the wren who has built her nest on a low branch overhanging the water, or for the dead mouse still dressed in its light brown suit. But my heart is always propped up in the field. in a field on its tripod, ready for the next arrow. After I carried the mouse by the tail to a pile of leaves in the wood, I found myself standing at the bathroom sink, gazing down affectionately at the soap. So patient and soilable, so at home in its pale green soap dish.

[08:56]

and I could feel myself falling again as I felt it turn in my wet hands and caught the scent of lavender and stone. How those moments of non-grasping, attentive equanimity can pop up And when we open to them, when we engage them, they not only enchant us, they instruct us. They instruct us on the intimacies of being. They quicken within us a tenderheartedness, a compassion, a solubility that we melt in the process.

[10:10]

And not to say that they disband, dispel the rancor, the grasping, the hardening, the contracting, that's also the stuff of our life. They hint at a benevolence with which we hold it, or could hold it. You know, often, In Zen speak, we link big mind, this kind of spacious, generous involvement in being alive. We speak of it in terms of the absolute, that which goes beyond the particular.

[11:18]

But it's very important to also remember that with a certain attitude, with a certain appreciation, with a certain softness to our eye and our heart, big mind comes alive on many occasions in our life. There it is. And yet, for most of us, most of the time, it seems to be in sharp contrast to small mind. We tend to be

[12:31]

too busy to take the light in a simple moment. We seem to be too preoccupied with the tensions and arguments of our own life to have concern for the fact that the wren's nest is precariously hanging over the water. Part of the attitude, the disposition, the friendliness of zazen is to quite intentionally make ourselves available for this state of being. You know, over many years, I've offered instructions on zazen.

[13:36]

And usually when you sit in front of a group and say, okay, let's sit, there is a kind of sincere, deliberate, determined effort comes on each person's face. And it's very easy for us to get forget that what's being asked of us is a kind of undoing. It's asking of us to trust, to trust the efficacy of a kind and compassionate response to the human condition. I think almost all of us come to the notion of practice with some variation of something inappropriate is happening, maybe outside of me or within me or both, or maybe more astutely in the interaction between the two.

[15:08]

Something inappropriate is happening and through the process of sitting I will discover how to fix it. That sentiment is not completely incorrect. Maybe modifying what our notion of inappropriate is, and maybe modifying our notion of what it is to fix it. In our usual state of being, the experience happens. It triggers within us habitual response. And the more and more we study the human organism, the more we see that there's an almost lightning-fast somatic, emotional,

[16:17]

involvement in the experience. A subtle or not so subtle contraction. And that stimulates within us the thoughts, the feelings, the memories, the habituated ways of being that have become part of how we respond to the world. We all have our own version of this. And this big mind of zanzen is saying, clearly observe. Intimately experience. And stay with it. And stay present.

[17:18]

In some ways, it's a very simple request. And in some ways, I mean, conceptually, it's a simple notion. Just be what you already are. Experience the experience that's already happening. It's a simple notion. And then in some ways, it's the most challenging thing that any one of us can do under most circumstances. We have our moments when we fall into it with delight. And the learning of zazen is learning how to bring forth this generous approach to the human condition. and in bringing it forth to discover what it is to not suppress, deny, compartmentalize, rationalize what's coming up for us.

[18:39]

To not bring into the involvement our usual repertoire of psychological defenses. What we find in the process is that when we come at it with a benevolence, it's much more effective. It's much more facilitating of engaging than an attitude that's motivated by knowing what should happen and what should not happen. And so this is a key component of big mind. Sometimes we say one of the key components is don't know. Don't know what the outcome should be. Don't know what should happen or what should not happen.

[19:45]

And I would add to that, keep alive the benevolent spirit. And in some ways, it's more of a heart involvement than a head involvement. And then in the yoga of seated meditation, we draw in an alignment of the body, upright, settled, releasing, and we draw in an alignment with the breath, allowing the breath to come in, allowing the breath to flow deep into the body, and allowing the breath to flow out of the body.

[20:56]

And this is where we can start to contact that more visceral formulation of our being that arises so spontaneously in response to the experience. And then this benevolent attitude in this yogic disposition, together they set the stage for meeting the turmoil of a human life. The more successfully we set the stage, the more we facilitate, the more we invite ourselves to release the psychological defenses. The more we set the stage, the more the impulse to go elsewhere.

[21:59]

the more the impulse to contract in response to what's arising dissipates. The impulse to go elsewhere dissipates. The more we set the stage, that adamant part of our mind that knows what should happen and what should stop happening, that adamant part of our mind that wants to figure it out and assert its authority. The more the stage is set, quite organically, these attributes start to loosen up and soften up. And our effort in Zazen is to sense the softening, expanding presence.

[23:05]

To sense how we contract. How we distract. So if there is a persistent state, a story in mind, persistent formulation that keeps... present that keeps asserting what it has to say. We hold it with a benevolent curiosity. Maybe it's a lot to ask ourselves to fall in love with it. Maybe it's not a lot to ask ourselves to start to be curious. to notice the particularities of that narrative. What is this story about?

[24:08]

To notice the emotional underpinnings that energize it. To notice how it ripples through the body. You know, each of our emotions has a facial register. So sometimes you can just notice where your face is tightening, contracting, holding the story. Or where the breath is holding it, or how the breath is holding it. So as we release on the body and the breath, holding it, what's coming up for us becomes more itself.

[25:17]

It becomes less adorned, less embroidered with the associated thoughts and feelings. It becomes more itself. Think, oh, this. giving rise to these feelings with this kind of charge. And then, in a strange way, we fall in love with it. Because here it is, this exquisite example of who we are. that most of the time we don't attend to in this level of detail.

[26:21]

Most of the time it sort of zips through and we don't quite notice. Because actually we'd rather be thinking about something else or feeling something else. And so with this disposition, awareness becomes less of an imposition that we're trying to put upon ourselves, even though we'd rather be thinking and feeling of something else, and more something that is expressing what we are, who we are, at this point in our lives and that we can learn from. And so in making our effort, in returning to our breath, in trying to sustain our attention, to try to differentiate between the effort to impose awareness, impose attention on your own reluctance to be attentive or aware,

[27:44]

You're going to wrestle yourself to the grind. But rather, it's more like a kindly persuasion, reminding yourself, you really want to do this. You think this is a good idea. You're going to like this. This is a marvelous opportunity. And it requires a refining of our effort. If your body is stiffening, if you're getting a headache, check out how you're engaging the process. And look to your body, how you're sitting,

[28:51]

where your shoulders are, how tight your jaw is or isn't, how tight your abdomen is or isn't. So part of the yoga of zazen is discovering soft effort. It's discovering what are the telltale marks that give me guidance when I'm fighting my experience, fighting it in the service of making it what it should be. And when am I opening? When am I allowing and relating, touching and experiencing? So we refine our effort.

[29:56]

And we hold this whole process with great patience, or as much patience as we can muster, because our habit energy is radically different. Our habit energy is to make it work in compliance with how I think it ought to be, how I feel it ought to be. I want to assert the full recklessness of my love. Because surely love is getting what you want. Surely love is bringing in the lover's embrace with complete satisfaction. On my terms.

[31:03]

And not to turn our own recklessness into the enemy. But to hold that in that other attribute of love, which we also know is about giving. You give to receive. That nobility that knows that love is the most sensible way to meet the world. know that love will instruct us, will guide us, even in relating to our own process. So that when we wander off, that we can remind ourselves that

[32:21]

the momentum of our habit energy has just distracted us from what we truly wish to be involved in. And as we continue with this kind of process, Presence becomes our friend. Presence becomes our ally. And as the presence becomes established, a very interesting thing starts to happen. As I was saying before, the particularity of what arises becomes more clear. It becomes more evident. The story, the feeling, the somatic response, the emotional response, the way it affects the breath, the way it affects the state of mind, the way it interrupts attentiveness.

[33:43]

And as the presence becomes established, the arising experience becomes itself and nothing else. It's just itself. It's just what comes up, completes itself, and goes away. Our usual state of mind has a lot of unfinished stories. So when you sit down in Zazen, guess what? you get all your unfinished stories. Some of them are very old, but they're not finished. Some of them just happened before you started to sit. In presence, the story is concluded. This is what it is. With all the amazing

[34:52]

attributes to it. The thoughts, the judgments, the feelings. And as the stories are concluded, who we are and the life we're living and the world we're living in have more permission to be themselves. They become less the constant play of the unfinished stories. In a very interesting way, often described in Zen language, they become nothing special. which in a way is a complete paradox, because it means they're not burdened with the embellishment of our unfinished stories.

[36:07]

And at the very same time, they become utterly lovable, because the capacity to meet them fully is coming into being. the little particularities and the big particularities of our life have more room and opportunity to be alive, to vibrate with their own authority of being. And this is the state of being that something in us knows we can trust. This is the state of being that something in us knows we can take refuge in.

[37:16]

We know living in a world of desperately trying to get what we want and avoid what we don't want with all the thoughts, attitudes, and feelings that come up around it. We know we can't really trust that. And that's what brings us to practice. And as we engage that, this request for this deeper, saner love, this love that holds the world with compassion, forgiveness, and maybe mostly ourselves, that will allow the rest of the world come to life.

[38:27]

So let me end with Billy Collins' poem again. Aimless Love. This morning, as I walked along the lake shore, I fell in love with the red. And later in the day, with the mouse, the cat had dropped under the dining room table. And in the shadows of the autumn evening, I fell for a seamstress, still at her machine in the tailor's window, and later for a bowl of broth, steam rising like smoke from a naval battle. This is the best kind of love, I thought, without recompense, without gifts or unkind words, without suspicion or silence on the telephone. The love of the chestnut, the jazz cap, and one hand on the wheel.

[39:34]

No lust, no slam at the door, the love of a miniature orange tree, the clean white shirt, the hot evening shower, the highway that cuts across Florida. No waiting, no huffiness or rancor, just a twinge every now and then for the wren who had built her nest on a low branch overhanging the water. or for the dead mouse, still dressed in its light brown suit. May my heart be always propped up in a field on its tripod, ready for the next arrow. After I carried the mice by the tail to a pile of leaves in the woods, I find myself standing at the bathroom sink, gazing down affectionately at the soap. so patient and soluble, so at home in its pale green soap dish.

[40:42]

I could feel myself falling again as I felt it turning in my wet hands and caught the scent of lavender and stone. What a mystery it is that sometimes being alive can seem such an easy and enjoyable proposition. And at other times, something quite different. Thank you. For more information, please visit sfcc.org and click Giving.

[41:55]

May we all fully enjoy the Dharma.

[41:58]

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