Good afternoon, everybody. Can you hear me okay? Thumbs up? Excellent. Was a delight to be here with you all again for our twice a week online practice session. And I think for anyone who is new to this particular offering, I'll just quickly let you know that we usually start off with a meditation. And I'll kind of offer some introductory words to lead us into the meditation, and then time will fade off into complete silence. And we'll do that for about 25 minutes. And then afterwards, I'll offer what I call a dharmet, a brief dharma encouragement. That'll be about 10 to 15 minutes or so. And then we'll open up the space for anyone to bring forward, anything you'd like to. either in regard to questions about the Dharmet I offered or something about your own practice that's live for you right now.

[02:09]

So, and the goal is to wrap up around 6.30 or so. That's how we'll spend the next hour together. I just wanna acknowledge that for many of us in the Bay Area that the shelter in place, we just found out has been extended until the end of May. So we're going to be on this particular raft on the COVID-19 ocean for over another month, it seems. And I confess I was a little crestfallen when I heard that because I was really hoping to be able to kind of come out of these limitations around what we can do in terms of social connection and physically and kind of the strict attention that we need to pay to health and safety protocols and wanting to be able to relax a little bit because I find it's taking a lot of energy, both physically, psychologically, emotionally, to continue navigating this particular time.

[03:15]

But our practice of Zen basically is a wonderful support for how we can continue to persevere and practice with a sense of diligentness, purposefulness, attentiveness, even if we don't particularly appreciate or like or enjoy the conditions in which we find ourselves practicing. So it's not about liking what's happening. It's about how can we stay awake and attentive to engaging the moment as it's showing up and not allowing ourselves to get caught in reactive habits of mind and body. So with that said, why don't we get ready for continuing our journey with a period of Zazen, being together in practice, being together in Songba.

[04:18]

So I'm gonna invite you to find an upright, attentive posture, And one that best accommodates your particular body and needs. And throughout the meditation, give yourself over to both a physical and mental posture that is attentive and yet relaxed. So I'm going to ring the bell three times. to begin the period of zazen, and then one time to end the period of zazen. And as I ring the bell initially, allow your awareness to gently accompany the vibration of the sound of the bell until it fades away. Here we go. So with the same focus of tension you just gave to the sound of the bell, making contact with that sound, with persistent awareness, allow yourself now to make contact with, become aware of, and relax into your present moment experience.

[06:11]

But gathering your attention from wherever it's been, whatever it's been occupied with, and allow it to simply abide in direct momentary experience of being right here. Allow awareness to come home to the body. Go out of your mind and into the body for a moment. Coming back into and sensing your embodiment. So feeling the sense of your head on your shoulders, the shoulders themselves, your limbs, your torso, all the muscles throughout your body, and the blood flow.

[07:15]

using all those touchstones to a sense of embodiment, of being right here in this moment, in this human body. And then feeling the body's intimate connection to the earth, which is tainted. That bodily presence be the prevailing ground of your experience. In zazen, we often use the breath as an element of posture, tuning into the breath to bring breath and body and mind in harmony. So we can use the breath as an initial touchstone, giving monkey mind something to attend to as a way to quiet it and thus support the body-mind to settle a little bit more deeply.

[08:39]

So allowing awareness to gently accompany the natural rhythm of breathing in and breathing out. non-judgmentally, the non-judgmental awareness. Simply noting, feeling the breath beginning and ending in the abdomen. Becoming keenly aware of both the inhale and the exhale. and noticing the way in which they kind of rise out of and begin in the hara, in the abdomen, in that space at the center of our being. You may wish to experiment with giving particular attention to the exhale,

[09:51]

We'll be initiating for a few breaths, intentionally breathing in for a count of four, and then exhaling, extending the exhale to a count of eight. And we'll be doing this three times, breathing in on the count of four, and then exhaling, extending the exhale to a count of eight. after the third time, return to allowing the breath to be natural again. But as you do so, perhaps just giving a little bit more attention to the exhale of each breath.

[10:55]

Suzuki Roshi says that calmness of mind is beyond the end of your exhale. If you exhale smoothly without even trying to exhale, you're entering into the complete, perfect calmness of mind. So you, as a separate self, do not exist anymore. When you exhale in this way, then naturally your inhale will start from there. All that fresh blood bringing everything from outside will pervade your body. You will be completely refreshed. Then you start to exhale, to extend that fresh feeling into emptiness, he says. So moment after moment, without trying to do anything, you continue Shikantaza.

[11:57]

Shikantaza means Just sitting. Just sitting, simply wholeheartedly being aware of the movements of breathing. And allowing the so-called inner and outer realms to merge in awareness of the breath. By doing so, allowing your sense of a separate self to fade into emptiness as you exhale. Making space for universal activity to make itself known with the next breath. This is Shikantaza according to Tsukiroshi.

[12:59]

Instead of trying to feel yourself as you inhale, fade into emptiness as you exhale. And in that emptiness, allow universal life, the totality of being, to unfold on its own terms. There's nothing you need to do. Simply rest in that unfolding, breath by breath. Sitting quietly and coming home to ourselves, to our embodied sense of being. feel our sensate connection to our environment, into the experience of the breath, which sustains us and serves as a portal to emptiness.

[14:18]

the mind wanders, getting distracted by thoughts or worries or planning or emotions, then allow yourself to simply return to the breath, to the embodied feeling of spaciousness and resting there. each exhale settling into an inner sense of wholeness and solidarity, of solitude and belonging, a sense of

[15:38]

resting and belonging to vast Godlessness. Continuing now, the rest of this period of meditation, continuing to come home to our direct experience. Resting in stillness, see silence. Resting as open awareness. We're leaving ourselves over and over again to a deeper exhalation and release.

[16:40]

Allow life to simply breathe you, resting in that universal breath. Thank you everyone for joining together in Zazen.

[30:46]

And now I'll venture into a brief Dharmet and see where it takes us. This weekend happened to reread one of my favorite poems, which is David White's The House of Belonging. Is anyone familiar with it? A few of you? So rereading it led me to reflect on the experience that many of us might be having right now, trying to find a deeper sense of belonging amidst this extended time of tremendous disruption, social isolation, physical distancing, and definitely uncertainty. So I thought I'd start by sharing the poem with you. Again, the house of belonging. I awoke this morning in the gold light, turning this way and that. Thinking for a moment, it was one day like any other.

[31:49]

But the veil had gone from my darkened heart, and I thought, it must have been the quiet kennel light that filled my room. It must have been the first easy rhythm with which I breathed myself to sleep. It must have been the prayer, I said, speaking to the otherness of the night. And I thought, this is the good day you can meet your love. This is the black day someone close to you could die. This is the day you realize how easily the thread is broken between this world and the next. And I found myself sitting up in a quiet pathway of light, the tawny, close green cedar burning round me like fire, and all the angels of this house free heaven ascending through the first roof of light the sun has made.

[32:55]

This is the bright home in which I live. This is where I ask my friends to come. This is where I want to love all the things it has taken me so long to learn to love. This is the temple of my adult aloneness, and I belong to that aloneness as I belong to my life. There is no house like the house of belonging. There is no house like the house of belonging. I recall reading somewhere that White wrote this poem at a time when his life had unraveled due to the breakup of a marriage. And he found himself alone and feeling somewhat disconnected and lonely and left wondering where he belonged and what was home for him.

[34:00]

And now due to the virus and to shelter in place, we have similarly been if you will, sent inside physically and emotionally to ask these questions of ourselves. We've been made to work out our sense of connection and the difference between isolation and loneliness or solitude, even if we're not home on our own, even if we're with others. And we're also forced to explore what true belonging means to us, especially given that our usual modes of thinking about and socially experiencing belonging are not as available to us as they were before. To feel as if you belong, according to White, is one of the great triumphs of human existence.

[35:06]

And especially to sustain a life of belonging. And to invite others into that life. Even at times when we're physically alone or apart, as many of us are right now. So you might be recognizing for yourselves at this time that it can be a great challenge to learn to be alone with yourselves. And to be alone with ourselves peacefully. not to be in conflict with ourselves, not to be in arguments with ourselves in any way, but to feel at home in oneself, to actually wholeheartedly belong to this beingness, belong to who we truly are. And I don't mean belong to our small, limited, contracted sense of self. We would say the conditioned self. but to our true self, the unconditioned self, the one that is vast, boundless, and luminous.

[36:18]

I think it's often hard for us to settle into a more complex sense of belonging amidst solitude, of belonging to ourselves, belonging to our homes, belonging to the world. We have a tendency to get restless so easily, to want to step out of our inner realms and be carried outward, to be distracted in any way from our inner life by the world so-called outside of ourselves. And I think for us as a species to be able to learn how to navigate this pandemic at this time, we need to become more comfortable. being at home in ourselves, being at home in our own bodies, our own minds, and our own hearts, to be comfortably in solitude. And so this is a remarkable time because it affords us an opportunity to study our experience of true solitude and belonging.

[37:29]

And I looked up the word solitude, and it comes from the Latin word solus, means basically alone. But I think solace is being alone that is free of, or mostly free of, a sense of loneliness. Loneliness has a negative connotation of being alone and somehow not connected to ourselves in some way. Loneliness has a disconnection to it. While solitude is an aloneness in which we become really intimate with ourselves. It's an aloneness in which we can realize our true home. And some people enjoy solitude, right? Some people enjoy being by themselves. And those are usually those people who run off to monasteries somewhere, right? Or go off to caves, you know, to meditate or just anything to be alone, right? That's their comfort place.

[38:31]

You know, some of us, you know, like me, are introverts. We like being alone. And then there's others who fear it, who yearn for connection, who like being around people, who find their sense of being in the midst of many, connected to others. So for some, solitude is a much welcome, contentive retreat. And for others, it can feel like a form of punishment. You know, like when our parents sent us to our rooms. Or like society, when society puts someone into solitary confinement in prison, it's meant to be a punishment in some way. So solitude can be either something that we take delight in, or it can be scary and frightening. And for many of us, either way, it may not be so easy. And it can require a strong effort to stay present when we're alone.

[39:31]

to not get carried away by habits of distraction that our society so often encourages us, right? Checking our cell phones, checking our email, watching Netflix, eating a bag of chips, online shopping, anything other than just being with ourselves in quietude and stillness. We look outward for something to fill our sense of aloneness because it somehow seems unbearable to us. But to be able to get used to solitude and to take it up in an intentional way as a practice can actually lead to insight and iteration. So in this way, I think solitude affords us a rare gift. It gives us time and space for introspection.

[40:35]

To discover and know who we are. To become intimate with ourselves. It affords us a chance to ask vital questions about what we want in our lives. What is it that's most essential? In an interview that... the teacher, the Dharma teacher Stephen Batchelor gave with Krista Tippett of On Being. He said that we can learn to actually create a solitude in which we feel at home and grounded. I think, crucially, it has to do with refining our capacity to see where our impulses come from. To extend those impulses are just, to what extent those impulses are just driven by conditioning, and habit and fear, and to what extent can we somehow open up a non-reactive space within us?

[41:40]

So solitude, the practice of solitude, is the practice of creating an inward autonomy within ourselves, an inward freedom from the power of those overwhelming thoughts and emotions. In other words, what he's saying is, Solitude can be for us a space of inquiry, what Vajra calls elsewhere an embodied inquiry. It's a space of freedom from our usual conditioned ideas about who we are and how we should be. To let go of old reactive habit patterns of mind and body, and in doing so, enter into new possibilities. Solitude can be a space in which we ask ourselves the hard and sometimes intimidating questions about what it is that we essentially and irrevocably belong to.

[42:48]

What is it from which we can never be separated, even when we're alone? It's this kind of inquiry that points us to our true self. It's then we might say that there's a learning to belong to ourselves, to our true self, to our Buddha nature, our Buddhist self. And there is learning the practice of mutual belonging, right? So belonging to ourselves, belonging to our true selves, and then the practice of mutual belonging. And the practice of mutual belonging is one that's founded in the recognition of our interdependent existence, our interconnectedness, our interbeing, as Thich Nhat Hanh would say. And both of these, learning to belong to our true self and learning to give ourselves over to mutual belonging, to interdependent belonging, are forms of spiritual maturity.

[43:58]

It takes a mature practice to be able to take up these forms of belonging. I think that the current environmental and climate crisis that we're witnessing is a matter of the human species having lost touch with, a felt sense of belonging, both to ourselves and to each other, as well as to the earth. We have lost contact with the embodied wisdom that tells us we are dependent on the health and vitality of this planet and the rest of its species and flora and atmosphere. We are dependent on each other, intimately dependent. And yet, we act as if we don't know who we are, nor the source of our own being.

[45:04]

Or rather, we have a mistaken view of who we are, one that's not rooted in a totality of being. And because we don't know who we are, we don't love ourselves. And when we don't love ourselves, we don't feel like we belong. Or a sense of belonging is a mistaken view of belonging, right? A belonging to the conditioned, ever-changing circumstances around us, rather than belonging to the unchanging, unconditioned, true nature of reality. I would say that the heart-mind of Buddha is the true house of belonging. Heart, mind of Buddha, love, is another way of saying that, is the true house of belonging.

[46:07]

And Brother David Stammerhaus, who some of you might be familiar with, he says that love is a lived yes to belonging. What is that lived yes of belonging for you? So rather than isolating or obscuring us, solitude, allows us to be in deeper and more meaningful relationship with ourselves and with those around us. And we may in time find that having the groundedness of solitude and belonging to ourselves, a basic sense of being at home with myself, is the foundation from which we can then really communicate more authentically and more directly with What is it to speak from a place of solitude? A place of being a home in ourselves, in our true selves.

[47:13]

Because that home in me is the same home in you. They're not two different homes. They're the same place. the environmentalist activist and scholar of Buddhism, Jerome Macy, says that being fully present to fear, to gratitude, to all that is, this is the practice of mutual belonging. As living members of the living body of earth, we are grounded in that kind of belonging. We will find more ways to remember, celebrate, and affirm this deep knowing. We belong to each other. We belong to earth. Even when faced with cataclysmic changes, nothing can ever separate us from her.

[48:15]

We are already home. The practice of mutual belonging is the medicine for the sickness of the small self, and it can accompany us to the hard times ahead. So I think I'll end there. And I want to just appreciate you for your kind attention during my darn nets. And let's go ahead and open up now the session to all of you in case you have anything you would like to share about the practice of solitude and belonging and anything else you'd like to share in your practice. So I see that Francisco has his hand up and Barbara is helping us today. So, Barbara, if you can unmute Francisco, so he can ask a question. If I can find Francisco. Where are you, Francisco? Hello. There you are. Great. Good to see you again.

[49:16]

Yeah, you too. Thank you very much for your kind words, as always. Today, after his death, I stood up to find out that one of my cats was dead. And it was sad. And I found the David White poem so matching to the situation. So thank you for sharing that. And my question was, at the beginning of the Sassen, you were talking about this idea of letting yourself go through the exhale, and that Suzuki Roshi talks about this into just letting go into your being. And could you comment on that? It's the first time that I actually heard in that way. And I found it so useful at the moment. So thank you. You're welcome. But first, I'm so sorry to hear the death of your cat, your beloved companion.

[50:21]

That's the hard, the difficult loss at any point. And particularly now, when we're already feeling disconnected from others to have someone close it in, die. And it's interesting because actually Suzuki Roshi, that quote that I read at the beginning during the meditation is actually from the book Not Always So. And he actually says to die into the exhale, to actually completely exhale and let go as if you were dying. Right? And then letting go so completely that the next moment it's that decides to take in the next exhale. It's not you as a separate self. It's the universal breathing, right? The universe breathes us. So with each exhale, what is it to die completely, to let go of our sense of a separate self and be breathed or taken into this larger inhale?

[51:31]

of the universe, right? When we were able to do that, when we were able to breathe in accord with the universe in that way, breathing in, fully appreciating and enjoying our breath, right? And then completely allowing it to let go. Dying into the next moment, dying into spaciousness, dying into emptiness, Suzuki Roshi says. Because out of that emptiness comes all things. Moment by moment, we're dying into that, fading into the emptiness, and we're coming out of that emptiness, right? So it's giving ourselves over, trusting this larger unfolding of being, the totality of being, right? We're not doing life. Life is doing us. The universe is breathing us. And when we can just rest in that, right, there's a relief that comes, right? And this is what cats do.

[52:33]

They just rest in that. They don't think about their breathing. They give themselves over to it. They give over to each breath. At some point, the universe says this particular wave, which expresses a cat, that is complete now. That breath is complete. And exhale and no longer inhales in that particular shape. but it takes so many other shapes. So appreciation to your Zen master, the cat right there, both of them, birth and death, life and death. Great Zen teachings, moment by moment. Thank you. Christian. Hi, David. Thank you for the... Darmat, who's really great.

[53:36]

You're welcome. Good to see you. Good to see you as well. I wanted to just comment. I really liked the poem. And the part that really struck me about what you said was how solitude is kind of realizing interbeing. And I never really thought about it like that. It's like the reason you know it or or even that in experiencing solitude if you experience it as being alone then that might be an indicator that you don't feel that connection that you're talking about that interbeing but in being alone seeing what's around you, all the things that you're connected to, even though there might not be any people is like, I think that just is really beautiful.

[54:39]

So I thank you for that connection of solitude and being actually extremely connected if done in that way. Oneness of being. And so oneness with diversity and multiplicity at the same time. Steven Batchelor has a book, one of his first book was Alone with Others. And it speaks to that. And he has a new book out, what is it called? The Art of Solitude, I think, or something like that. So this idea of looking at our aloneness, because we can only be this particular wave of the universe, right? We're uniquely this particular expression of the universe. This is our place to embody. It's our home. So we live this place of the universe. but it is deeply connected to the rest of the universe and to each other. So we're alone, but we're not alone in that sense, right?

[55:39]

And our inquiry is to kind of explore that koan, that deep mystery of how do I live this life as this particularity and at the same time as a very intimate multiplicity of being. That's beautiful. Thank you, David. Thank you, Christian. Barbara, help me. Is there any other questions? Susan Leibel. Hi, David. Hi, Susan. Here's what I'm dealing with. I have very little problem being alone and being isolated and being with myself. except that I start to have a discussion about not being productive. I value my time as what did you get done today?

[56:40]

How were you productive? And I find this is the biggest challenge of this period for me. It's interesting how when we get into situations like this, we really begin to see old conditioned habit patterns. And it sounds like one of your old conditioned habit patterns, one of the old narratives is I need to be doing something in order to be worthy. I have to be productive. I have to produce something. And if I don't, there's something about me that's not quite right. I'm not worthy in some way. It's what it often points us to. And that society, I think that's a big message that particularly capitalistic society fosters onto us. You know, this idea, you have to continue to do, do, do, produce, produce, produce. Your value, your worth is a matter of how much you're doing. And this is why Zazen is such a radical, you know, response to that.

[57:45]

It's all radically non-doing. You don't produce anything at Zazen. You know, it's this absolute not doing anything, not producing anything. going against those conditioned habit patterns, going against the stream, as we say, and just being. Giving ourselves to being, which we don't have to produce that value. We are already deeply worthy just by being alive. There's nothing more we need to do. So to rest and enjoy and savor our beingness, And to give our permission, give ourselves permission. So that's, you know, the condition that you and many of us have to work against. To actually take time to stop, to become still, not to do one more thing. In many cases, if you were going to look at your to-do list, and if you say, if I'm going to die tonight, what about this list do I really need to get done?

[58:55]

And most likely, almost none of it. Right? Yeah. Feel guilty for not vacuuming, for example. Right. Yeah. And I'm going to put that on your gravestone, right? Susan died without vacuuming her home. What a terrible person. I know. It's crazy. And no one's around right now. Right? So look at those impulses. This is part of what Stephen Mitchell was talking about. So look at the impulses that come up in times when we come to solitude. And we come in contact with our conditioning. We hear those old voices. They're more prevalent because we're not as distracted as we usually are by looking outward, right? And we see that conditioning come up and we can stop and pause and go, wait a second. Do I really need to act out this conditioning? Do I need to believe that old narrative, those old stories? Do I need to give them energy? Because every time I give them energy, every time I act them out,

[59:58]

I perpetuate that conditioned habit pattern. I get stuck in the wheel like a gerbil, keep running around and around and around, getting nowhere. All this doing isn't getting us anywhere. It's just making us exhausted in most cases, right? So really giving yourself permission to stop and to rest. This is so often we talk about zazen as a way of deeply resting into our own being. It doesn't require any effort or very little effort, just the effort to stay with the experience that we're experiencing and allow ourselves to open to it. So, Give yourself permission not to be productive. Thank you.

[61:02]

You're welcome. So let's see if there's any other, I think we're just about time. I'm just checking to see if there's any other inquiries or sharings that someone wanted to bring forward. I'm not seeing anything else at the moment. So I just want to appreciate you all for your practice, for being together in this way and supporting each other. And the inspiration of deeply settling into and exploring what is a profound solitude, right? What is the solitude that helps you to connect to a deeper sense of belonging to your own being. This is a very rich time.

[62:03]

It's a powerful time for us if we can use it in that way as a practice. So thank you again for your practice. It always encourages me to continue my practice during this challenging time. And it looks like we're going to be on this wrap together for at least another five weeks. So I look forward to the opportunity to continue in the Brita way with all of you. Be well. Good night, everyone. Thank you. Take care. Bye. Thank you. Thank you. Good night. Good night. Thank you, David. Good night, everyone. Take care.

[63:03]

Good night. Thank you. Bye. Good night, David. See you later. Henry. Yes. Hi. Who's this? This is Sandra. I know you from Hartford Street, but we can talk later. Okay. Hi. How are you? Didn't realize my mic was on. I didn't realize it could be seen. Nice to see you're well. Take care. Likewise. Thank you. Bye-bye. Gracias. Buenas noches. Buenas noches, Maria Elena. Buenas noches. Take care. Bye-bye. Excellent. Darmat. Thank you, Maria Elena. Be well. I'm going to sleep with my being. Okay. Bye-bye. Thank you, Barbara. You're welcome.

[64:05]

Sorry for a little glitch at the end and also my difficulty in the beginning. No problem. It all unfolded beautifully. Yeah, I enjoyed it though. Thank you. Take good care. Have some rest. Okay. Bye now. Bye.

[64:22]

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