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 evening, everyone. Welcome. Welcome to Beginner's Mind Temple. Welcome whether or not this is your very first time. or if you've been here innumerable times and you've lost counts. It's always wonderful to have us come together in this way, join in the Dharma, join in presence with each other, making an effort to connect to that which is most fundamental to our lives. So thank you for being here. Let's see, this is basically going into the second week. of our spring practice period. It's a six-week practice period, which I am honored to be co-leading with my Dharma sister, K. Julian Shutt.

[01:05]

And the theme of study that we have chosen this practice period is wise effort in everyday life, harmonizing stillness and activity. And so we are exploring wise effort, particularly through four lenses. Meditation, relationship, work, and the world, or engaging the world, if you will. So tonight, what I'd like to do is talk about effort through the first lens of meditation. And I want to talk about this, particularly through the aspect of non-effort or non-doing. So what I'm going to say is by no means meant to be exhaustive, but it's really an invitation for all of you to kind of consider some of these things that I'm sharing with you, try them on for yourselves, and see what's true for you.

[02:07]

So thank you for joining me in this together. So I think it's... It's safe to say that a number of us, when we first come to a Zen center, either to study or live, might have this idea that we're going to be just sitting around doing a whole bunch of nothing. We're just going to be sitting on our little black cushions in bliss states all day long. And then for those of you who have been here more than maybe a couple days, you realize this is grossly not the case. and you're disabused of that fantasy quite quickly, and realize that living in a Zen center is probably one of the busiest places you could be, going nonstop from very early in the morning to late at night. And so a lot of what our activity is doing is supporting each other to wake up and to connect.

[03:13]

And so a lot of times we wonder, well, how is this happening? I feel so busy, I have no time to stop. to connect. I last week shared a story that when I was at Tassajara, and this I think was a little over 15 years ago, I was part of a practice period in which I was what's called a Doan. I was on the Doan Rio, and the Doan Rio is the group of students who are... assigned to helping to support the zendo activities. So ringing the bells, ringing the makugyos, calling people to the zendo for meditation, leading the oryoki training crews, and a whole bunch of other related activities. And that's part of what you're doing. You're learning how to do these functions so you can support the temple in those particular ways. However... I found it to be kind of a very busy practice period. And I was hoping to have something that was a little bit more settled and quiet.

[04:17]

And I went into Dokkasan with Paul Howler, who was leading the practice period, basically to complain. I'm saying, you know, all this busyness of being a Dohan is just exhausting. And I don't have any time to settle. And I feel like I'm just doing, doing, doing all the time. And I really don't want to be doing. I just want to be, you know? And even Zazid felt like it was one more thing to do. Like, ring the bell, sit. Ring the bell, sit. Ring the bell, you know? Like, hurry up, get to it, sit down, do it, and then leave, and then do it again, on and on. And so, you know, I think most practice leaders just know people come in complaining all the time. Is that true, Rip? Or Ed? Yeah? Oh, Bliste, they don't complain to you. Okay, maybe I just get the ones who complain, you know. Anyhow, it's often kind of like this is not what we signed up for here, what's going on here.

[05:20]

Anyhow, Paul, you know, basically responded, something along the lines that Zazen was in fact the opposite of doing. And it was an opportunity to practice non-doing and to settle into simply being. I wasn't able to take this in at the time. I wasn't convinced, right? Because I thought even meditation, there was something about doing, about meditation. You had to do meditation in some way, right? You had to do zazen. And that you make all this kind of concentrated, active, effortful effort in order to be a very good zazen sitter, right? And, you know, I confess I'm a little bit of a slow learner. It took me a while to kind of come around and figure this out, that that wasn't so much the case. In the years since, I've kind of come to understand that zazen, or meditation, is not something you do.

[06:28]

It's what you are. Zazen is what you are. So I want to explore that. idea with you a little bit more this evening. So the practice of zazen is also known as shikintaza, which is a Japanese term that can be translated as nothing but precisely sitting. Nothing but precisely, exactly, just sitting. So the whole point of shikintaza is is to just sit there doing nothing. It's a practice of not doing. However, for many of us, this is extremely difficult to even conceive of. What does it mean to actually just sit there doing nothing? And like me, you might have this idea that I'm supposed to be doing meditation, whatever that is for you.

[07:35]

concentrating, being aware of the present moment, something, anything, anything, but really, really doing nothing. Nada. Right? Sometimes when I settle into my period of zazen in the zendo, I try to inspire, encourage myself by inviting myself not to meditate. And so when I do this, I realize after a period of time that I've just taken the seated position, that we take in zazen, and I've started to do this practice of shikantaza. And then after a period of time, my mind begins to wander. And I begin to recognize my mind's wandering. And then I begin to think about how I'm not doing zazen very well.

[08:38]

And then suddenly the whole thing goes off the track. And then, if I can, with some gentle humor, I remind myself once again that I don't have to do anything. I can just relax and sit there. And sometimes, you know, that I... I see to the extent which I'm not relaxed. I might look for all the places in my mind and body in which there's some form of contraction, of tension, of holding or grasping in some way. And if I look deeply into these areas in my mind and body, because you can do that, you can check it in your body and also you can see grasping, you can feel it, you can feel it in your mind. I see this underlying tension is often what's the word it's a matter of a strong doing that's happening a strong efforting that's happening in some way and either that efforting often case is trying to grab something or a burden you know Leanne was talking about this the other day you can feel this in your body sometimes leaning trying to get something or going away

[09:57]

And then sometimes people are like this. I love walking around the Zendo. I'm just like, what? This is probably the delusional type, right? I'm just going to duck. And so what I do when I scan my body and find these places of tension or contraction, I try to encourage them to relax in some way, breathing into those places in the body, breathing into the particular knots, or the eddies of anxiety and so that I am experiencing, seeing if they might soften a little bit, just soften, become more tender, a little bit more at ease. See if they can settle a little bit, kind of almost dropping their shoulders, wherever that particular tension in the body, kind of just drop his shoulders just a little bit. And sometimes they do, and sometimes not so much. But if I start trying to think that it should be different, that this tension should go away, I'm breathing into it for crying out loud, then I get more tense.

[11:07]

So I have to really be kind of tender. It's like, okay, if you want to relax, that's okay. If you don't want to relax, that's okay too. Can I just be with what's happening? And other times when I'm just sitting there, suddenly the whole universe opens up. I'm awake. I'm here. I feel this deep sense of appreciation, a deep sense of intimacy. I'm clearly feeling this kind of dependent, co-rising connectedness to everything in some way. And I have this capacity to kind of just embrace my life as it is. as it's manifesting, without having it be contingent on things being a particular way, whatever that might be. And it's very simple then to sit, just sit, doing nothing.

[12:11]

And then I can once again fall into thinking or planning or negotiating, you know, and I find myself, you know, it's kind of ironic, oftentimes when I catch myself this, I find myself actually thinking about meditation and practice. And I'm kind of almost hearing my mind giving myself zazen instruction, doing zazen. And it's really kind of like, what am I doing here? Trying to speak to myself and instruct myself in some way. And then checking, am I doing it right? Here's the instruction, and then am I doing it right in some way? And so all this chatter is still going on inside my head. And then there's a question I notice sometimes of, who is thinking this? Who is thinking this? Or, who am I? Or, am I only the self-conscious part that's aware of, I am sitting?

[13:17]

Am I not also my body? which continues to patiently sit in stillness, despite all the mind-wandering that's going on in some way. And so regardless of what's going on in my mind, it's just really nice to just wholeheartedly sit, to allow myself mentally and volitionally just to be with sitting, and physically, just be with this activity that's happening. as an expedient means, therefore we practice not doing. We practice not doing. And practice is something we do. Something, although paradoxically in this case, our practice is not doing. So we're practicing not doing. And as one teacher said that I know, because human beings are so attached to doing, this is a clever way to get us to commit.

[14:21]

So how does one go about practicing non-doing? Well, you can basically follow any technique that you find convinces us or allows us to stop doing. Whatever technique that might be for you. one of the classic techniques is to follow the breath. And this is a good way to sustain not doing for more than a moment. Follow the breath, extend that for a while. However, it's important from the perspective of Shikantaza that we don't make following the breath into a doing. So Blanche Hartman, who was a former abbess here and the teacher of Lian, often told the story about how, you know, when she first started practicing, she often got very discouraged with her practice, and she'd keep going to Suzuki Roshi, and he would offer her encouragement.

[15:33]

And one day, she was able, finally, to follow her breath for a whole, the duration of a whole day of sitting a one day sitting we just did a one day sitting on Saturday so the whole day she was able to follow her breath and she went into Suzuki Roshi very excited you know and she said Roshi Roshi now I can count every breath what do I do next right and Suzuki Roshi leaned forward and said very fiercely to her don't ever think that you can sit Zazen That's a big mistake. Zazen sits Zazen. Zazen sits Zazen. So, allowing Zazen to sit Zazen means that the egoic you, the one that wants to be in control all the time, the one that wants to attain something or gain something, particularly from your Zazen,

[16:45]

and particularly maybe to try to be better, perhaps, that one is given permission to relax and to simply settle into not doing. And because you're not doing anything else, you can then follow your breath. So following the breath is a little bit of doing, that's true. But it's a relatively small and simple form of doing. We allow it. I can't remember. I think someone once said, Zazen is maybe 30% of your attention on your breath and the other 70% on just open awareness. I don't know if someone could correct me if I'm wrong about that equation. 2575. Okay, I was close. I have to work on that. So another way to take up the practice of a non-doing is to invite ourselves to let go of or not to take up anything that arises in our field of experience.

[18:02]

And to simply thereby rest and relax your mind. Whenever I hear the phrase, relax your mind now, I've been conditioned... Because Steve Stuckey would often sing this song called Relax Your Mind that was by Lead Belly. And he would often do it at the end of a Dharma talk. So every time I hear that now, Relax Your Mind, I hear this Lead Belly song going through my head in some way. So it's a very sweet song if you have a chance to hear it. On the door of my office... I have a printout of a meditation and teaching known as Thalopa Six Words of Advice. And it's also known as the Six Nails. And Thalopa was a 11th century adept who I think lived in the region of Northwest India, if I'm correct. And I often remind myself at the beginning of meditation when I sit down,

[19:05]

of this particular advice from Talopa. The teaching essentially emphasizes radical, non-doing, using as an approach the first two of the four exertions or the four right efforts that Leanne mentioned in her talk on Saturday and also we talked about them in the class last night. And the first two are what? Anyone remember? Oh, you're all forgetting already. So think of PACE. This is Lian's clever acronym. I think that's the word. Acronym. There we go. Not an acronym. Acronym. So first PACE is preventing, P, and then the second one is A, abandoning. And then C stands for cultivating, and E stands for extending or maintaining. So the first two, in this case, preventing and abandoning unwholesome mental formations or qualities.

[20:09]

So Tolopa's advice goes like this. Let go of what has passed. Let go of what may come. Let go of what is happening now. Don't try to figure anything out. Don't try to make anything happen. Rest. Relax. Right now and rest. So at its heart, this meditation instruction is about simply, it's about using simple awareness to allow what is happening in the present moment to take place. Just allow it to be exactly what it is. And this meditative activity is all a matter of non-doing or endeavor to actively refrain from activity, which is a form of enunciation. So I'm going to walk through these six again and unpack them a little bit.

[21:17]

Let go what has passed. So another way of framing this is don't recall. Don't get lost in memory or stories about the past. or chase any kind of past experiences, including any particular kenshos or insights that you had. Just leave them in the past. And then the second one, let go of what may come. And this can be reframed as don't imagine. Don't conceive of a future or some alternative reality. Don't get up... caught up in planning or trying to achieve some kind of goals, particularly meditation goals. The third one, let go of what is happening now. Don't think. Don't go into thinking or labeling mode, even labeling the particular experiences you have. And this is a slightly different instruction than what you might hear if you go to a Tverat Theravadan or a Vipassana center, because oftentimes what the initial instructions is to label or note what's going on in your experience.

[22:29]

That's not a practice that we take up in Zen so much. In this case, given this is coming from a later kind of practice field, time, and also coming out of the Tibetan tradition, which is a Mahayana tradition, You know, the idea is don't even describe what's going on in your present moment experience. Let go of that. Fourth, don't try to figure anything out. Don't examine. Refrain from analyzing or assessing or diagnosing, for example, what's going on in your zazen. You know, doing that is kind of a way of measuring it. Am I doing it right? Am I doing it the way that I read? Am I doing the way that I'm supposed to do? Am I making any progress? Am I doing something wrong? You can just feel the energy that comes up with that kind of assessing, diagnosing. So not doing that, just sitting. Don't try to make anything happen, the fifth one.

[23:31]

Don't control. Stop trying to fabricate a particular type of experience. Oftentimes we might read in a meditation book or hear about someone's particular kind of meditation experience and we think, oh, I want to have the same kind of experience. So I'm going to kind of create it and do something in a special way to create it. So don't do that. No fabricating. Don't try to make anything happen. That was that one. And then finally, rest. Relax right now and rest. So rest. come back to ease and settle the mind and body into a sense of expansiveness. Rest as the spaciousness that we fundamentally are. So these six instructions by Talopa not only show us how to settle, or sometimes it's described as how to place the mind,

[24:36]

but also to highlight all the ways that we as meditators need to be very careful as we cultivate our practice. So Thalopa is showing us that we can nurture our practice while also simultaneously deepening its meaning, and that the two are not mutually exclusive. I was curious why these were called the six nails, and I was thinking about that. One of the reasons I came up with, and I don't know if it's true, is because the fact that they emphasize a fundamental not moving. As if you were nailed down in place and you couldn't go anywhere. Just nailed right here to this moment. Not able to move, not able to leave, not able to wander. Just being fully present and attentive to things as it is in this moment. Someone, I think I read somewhere, described this as kind of like being a bee stuck in honey, being stuck in the sweetness of this moment, not being able to move, but just being there and settling into it.

[25:53]

My teacher, Tia Strozer, actually adds a seventh nail to the sixth. And this is stay awake, and notice what is always in every experience. Stay awake and notice what is always in every experience. So in other words, the only activity, if you want to call it that, is simply abiding as awareness, as awake presence, or simply presencing. I mentioned in my Dharma talk last week also that one of the reasons I came to Zen Center was because I wanted to learn to cultivate presence in my life. And one reason was in order to kind of bridge a disruptive relationship that I had with my father.

[27:02]

He was in the process of dying and I thought this might be an opportunity to heal that rift. And then Another aspect was actually to heal for myself a deeper sense of lack or somehow being not enough that had been conditioned in me from a childhood of disruption and trauma in some way. My uncle, my father's only living sibling, is a fan of Tara Brach. and he often goes to her retreats, and she is a Vipassana teacher, lives in Baltimore, I believe. And I watched a recent video clip in which she said this about effort. Effort is always towards presence because everything that matters to us arises through presence.

[28:03]

Effort is always towards presence because everything matters that matters to us arises through presence. And in my experience, presence comes about by not striving to be present, but by allowing myself to simply open to the experience that is happening in the present moment. So if I'm feeling resistant in any way to what's happening, it's hard for me to be present. My mind begins to wander. My body might begin to wander. I check out in some way. My attention goes away. But if I'm able to relax and rest and let go of my preferences and ideas about how things should be any other way than just this, then I can make a deeper connection

[29:06]

just experiencing that right now. A deeper connection that is beyond any of the vigors and discipline or concentration that Zen training is often associated with. Toni Packer, I don't know if anyone has ever read her book. She's a wonderful teacher. She has a book called The Wonder of Presence. She points out that presence is not brought about by concentration. She notes that many people express dismay with the kind of endless streams of thinking, and they wonder, do I need to make more effort to get my thoughts under control? Do I need to be more disciplined? Do any of you have that kind of question or problem? If I could just control or discipline myself more, then I wouldn't have any more thoughts or thinking.

[30:18]

However, Tony writes, presence is effortless. It is not brought about by concentration. Actually, this mind was able to concentrate even before beginning Zen training. But being concentrated is not the same as being here, present and clearly aware. We can practice concentration for years and become highly focused, even perform feats that seem miraculous. But being concentrated doesn't help us in understanding who we truly are. Understanding who we truly are is not a product of concentration or imagination. In other words, you don't create presence. You, as a self who thinks they're in control, can't get there by doing something.

[31:21]

Presence or awareness is already and always here. Always present. Elsewhere, Packer writes, we may think that effort is the source of awareness, but in presently awareing this thinking, There is no effort. It's just happening. Listen to the rain. We hear it clearly, don't we? It must have been raining that day. Was there any effort needed to hear the rain? Is there any effort needed to receive the world, to receive the experience in this moment? the sounds of the traffic, the sounds of each other breathing, the sensation of your body sitting here, the coursing of the blood through your body, the visual field coming in.

[32:29]

You don't have to do anything. Presence is that fathomless capacity to receive. boundless capacity to receive all of this. On a related note, while we are encouraged through mindfulness practice to cultivate or pay attention, I would suggest that paying attention is not the same as resting as awareness. Paying attention is not the same as resting as awareness. And actually, the word attention, which comes from the Latin with a, the first part, a meaning to or towards, and tundere, meaning to stretch. So in other words, attention implies a stretching or directing of awareness towards an object of knowledge or experience.

[33:39]

In other words, to pay attention to something, such as the breath, still posits a duality. That there is a subject that is separate from an object that is being perceived. But our Zen practice is one of realizing non-duality, of the oneness of all being. speaking to this point, Suzuki Roshi said, is important for us to make an effort until the last moment when all effort disappears. You should keep your mind on your breathing until you're not aware of your breathing. So not aware of breathing as an object or a separate experience that's happening to you. Rather, there's just the experience, sensations,

[34:41]

unfolding in a boundless field of awareness, which we can give the name I. And so this I that Suzuki Roshi speaks of, this boundless field of awareness, is our true self, is what we often call our Buddha nature, that which is always present in every experience. regardless of what you're doing or not doing. And another name for this balanced field of awareness is emptiness. Suzuki Roshi also said that from true emptiness, the wondrous being appears. So how might we take up when in any endeavor or effort this

[35:42]

a deeper recognition of our tremendously embodied experience of a dependently co-arisen life. That there is no separate self, no separate identity that I can pull out of every moment. I exist dependent on all existence. And the word existence actually means to stick out of. So even that word is a misnomer. We don't stick out from existence. We don't stick out from this. And whenever you think you stick out, that's a problem. That's where suffering begins. Separation has started. Guy Armstrong, in his excellent book called Emptiness, A Practical Guide for Meditators, recounts how the Thai forest monk by the name of Ajahn Jungnian, I think I pronounced that right, once visited Spirit Rock.

[36:59]

And although he was in his 60s, he had spent the whole day enthusiastically teaching, giving lectures, and so on. And then even into the evening, when he didn't seem to feel tired at all, And when someone asked him how he did this, you know, all day long just going, going, going, teaching, teaching, nonstop, you know, at his age, he replied, I live in emptiness so I don't get tired. I live in emptiness so I don't get tired. And so what Anjan Jumnian, my apologies to him for mangling his name, what he was able to do throughout his whole schedule of activities was to abide inwardly by not getting caught or involved in mental constructs or sense objects.

[38:02]

So he just let the objects of his senses, sights, sounds, smells, and so on, including mental formations, just flow and pass through him. There was nothing sticking out for anything to bump into or catch on. So basically, kind of abiding as a boundless, empty sky, allowing all kinds of clouds in whatever form they may take to pass through. and all the while not identifying with the sense objects, not grabbing them and believing in them as some aspect of a separately-existent self. Elsewhere in his book, Guy Armstrong says this about non-doing.

[39:12]

Non-doing does not mean that one no longer acts. The true significance of non-doing is that the actions of a fully enlightened being no longer come out of self-centeredness. The self has been seen through so thoroughly that eye-making and mind-making have ceased to operate. so there is no longer an imaginary core that actions have to feed or protect. Without the burden of self, the mind is clear and the heart is open. When a situation presents itself, the response from the enlightened mind comes naturally and immediately without premeditation. Wisdom and loving-kindness have become so well-established that they are the intentions from which action springs. Volition still operates, but without reference to the false sense of self.

[40:17]

It is the selfless, spontaneous nature of the action that takes it out of the field of karma leading to future results. So in other words, if we can be momentarily free from preoccupation with self-centeredness and the suffering that comes with it, then we can discover a spontaneous nature in our response to any particular situation that might arise. This is the place from which appropriate response arises, or skillful means, upaya, from that place of non-clinging, non-self. The whole universe knows what to do. It just comes through you when you step aside. So you don't have to be perfect. And I'm saying this to myself, frankly, right?

[41:21]

You don't have to be perfect. Just trust that our purity of heart and wholehearted intentions will result in beneficial karma. we have this emphasis in Zen on non-action, non-doing, non-striving. I want to note, however, that this emphasis on non-action and non-doing sometimes gives Buddhism a reputation for quietism or passivity, even in the face of injustice. However, this is a misunderstanding. of the meaning of non-doing. So-called enlightened beings can act forcefully when action is needed. They compassionately respond and act with force if needed, with a strength that comes from wisdom.

[42:26]

And there are many examples of this, of what we might call now engaged Buddhism. People like the Dalai Lama, Thich Nhat Hanh, Sulak Sivaksa and Joanna Macy. They're activists who have been greatly involved in social, political, and environmental causes in their country. Responding to the cries of the world. Not a place from self. I'm doing this because I want to be someone. But doing because the response comes naturally from this deeper presence. And so these powerful bodhisattvas, what they do, they do from emptiness. A deep recognition that we are all the same boundless awareness. And as you probably know, another name for this is love. They do it from love.

[43:31]

Presence is love. One of the things I appreciate most about our practice is the experience of stillness in silence that it affords us so often. To be able to come in contact with this almost immediately just by simply pausing and turning inward. My dear friend, Lee Lip, who... passed away, it's coming up on now, about two years. She would often share a practice that she did whenever she was feeling particularly over-busy or agitated. And when she noticed this was happening for her, she would stop, pause, and ask herself the question, where is there stillness here? Where is there stillness here?

[44:34]

And so we can take up the same practice to pause and ask ourselves, where is the stillness here? Whenever we find ourselves over-efforting, rushing about, trying to get somewhere, trying to attain something, where is the stillness here? Or if we find ourselves in a particular noisy situation, or even if the noise is mostly in our heads, which it usually is from my experience, we can ask a similar question Where is there silence here? Where is there silence here? And then listen. Deeply listen. Listen beyond any perception of a subject who is listening or an object that's being heard. Rest in the space of not knowing

[45:37]

of not having an answer. Rest in the quality of being that most deeply nourishes you, that asks nothing of you except to rest in fundamentally what you are. And yet, returning to Tony Packer, she reminds us, If we're honest with ourselves, we don't come to silence without a lot of effort. We strive, and we strive to stay with what's happening, coming back again and again whenever the mind wanders, working with our overactive minds and our overactive bodies in order to stay present to what is. And then, at some point, not due to anything we've done in particular, something in us gives over

[46:39]

to just being here, and being here without any effort. So we can either have a concept of effortlessness, or we can be truly in the state of no effort. Just openness without me. Realizing that we are completely ourselves, we are completely here, and have been all the time. Total presence is without striving, without fighting or resistance, without fear, without the me. Sometimes we feel in our effort like we're beating against a wall or a mountain that won't move. But then at some point, we recognize that that wall or mountain is us. And when that wall has crumbled, there is nothing left but openness. Openness is always here.

[47:40]

This vast, silent, still, and spacious boundlessness is always here. So I hear in these words encouragement to get out of our way. which in my experience is not an easy thing to do because then I think I have to do getting out of my way. So how do I do getting out of my way? And then I start tripping over that. And so we just conceive of it as one more activity. However, if I remind myself on a regular basis that I don't need to do zazen or make an effort to be present, then I can taste once again the truth that meditation or zazen is not something we do.

[48:46]

It's what we are. Zazen then for me becomes what Dogen described as the Dharma gate of joy and ease. And it's a gate that's always open, always available for me to enter. as long as I stay awake and present with the continuous and impermanent flow of life. So with the words of Tony Packard, still in our ears, I'll close with a poem by the Chinese poet Li Po, and the poem is titled Zazen on Qingting Mountain, and goes like this. The birds have vanished down the sky. Now the last cloud drains away. We sit together, the mountain and me, until only the mountain remains.

[49:50]

The birds have vanished down the sky. Now the last cloud drains away. the mountain remains. What is the sitting with nothing standing out? Thank you for your attention. For more information, please visit sfzc.org and click Giving.

[50:58]

May we fully enjoy the Dharma.

[51:01]

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