This podcast is offered by the San Francisco Zen Center on the web at www.sfzc.org. Our public programs are made possible by donations from people like you. It's the solstice today. It's that time of rising and then beginning to change. So I just finished leading, co-leading, a Zen and yoga retreat last week, which was really lovely. And I get asked a lot anyway, how did you come here? How did you come to Zen? But particularly during that retreat, I got asked maybe an unusual number of times, having meals with people and sitting around and talking. And in fact, at Zen Center, we regularly give talks that we call way-seeking mind talks, which basically try to answer that question in some way or another.

[01:12]

How did we come to be here at this time in our lives? You know, what is the mind that seeks the way, the way of practice? And I've given maybe... of those kinds of talks in a formal way and then answered it at different times, many, many other times. And every time the story is different. It has some kind of points that I tend to land on regularly. Just as kind of convenient points. But the story has... has changed over the years, and each time I'm called to do one, it's actually an opportunity to reflect again and see if there's something new, and there often is. And the interesting thing is I often can't tell the old stories that I used to tell. The way that I used to make sense of my life, it's like, I can't tell that story anymore.

[02:16]

But one of the points that I pretty routinely land on is when people say, well, what first got you interested in Zen? And I say, a footnote in a Salinger novel. Because it's funny, right? And then often people say, which one? And in case you're curious, I think it was Raise High the Roof Beam Carpenters. And it's not Catcher in the Rye. It's one of the Glass family novels, stories. And because I got asked that so many times in such a short period of time, I started wondering about that. I thought, that's really odd, because there was this footnote. The narrator, Buddy, who is a writer, was rather pedantically suggesting to his young readers haiku featured prominently in the story. One of the characters wrote beautiful haiku.

[03:20]

which was so beautiful that you could never actually read it. I mean, Salinger couldn't write the beautiful haiku that he envisioned, you know. But the narrator, Buddy, was saying, if any of my young readers are interested in reading haiku for yourselves, I particularly recommend the translations of R.H. Blythe, who was a high-handed old poem himself. And something about that caught me, and I spent... a lot of effort tracking down his books because they were completely out of print. They were all published in Japan, in English, but in Japan in like the 60s mostly, and quite out of print. And I finally found some that were still in print from Japan. And I started thinking, why? Why did I follow this footnote? And I reflected there was something about those novels, those short stories that really resonated for me in some way.

[04:32]

There was some feeling, some quality that captivated me in some way. And I couldn't really say anything about it. what it was. There was something about the family, something about the Glass family. It's a little like Wes Anderson. He makes the movies with the crazy families. His family was a little like that. A little more warm and human rather than quite so weird and quirky. But I read those novels a lot. I read them more than a few times. And there have been a few books that I've just... gone back and read again. I can't say why, but something was touched. So that... And I started recognizing different points in my life where I was following or trying to follow some feeling, something that felt right and not really...

[05:39]

knowing how to do that. So I read the haiku, and then I found his other, Blythe's other books on Zen, different translations of things, Zen in English literature and Oriental classics, and tried to find, because they said, you meditate, there's practice, and you can go do this and realize this for yourself, looked in different... Zen centers and meditation centers and was having a really hard time figuring out the connection between these very serious people sitting so rigidly and this playful, evocative writing that had touched me so deeply in a way that I couldn't express. And one of the ways that I was searching was to go out and do these solo desert trips. I just kind of heaved myself out in the middle of some desert that was relatively temperate for that time of year.

[06:43]

Mostly borrowing a friend's 68 VW bus. Named Crazy Horse, if that's not sort of iconic enough for anyone. Had a mattress in the back. No heat. Ran well, though. Mostly. And I just kind of heaved myself out in the middle for like week or two, and I had no idea what I was doing, either camping or any other way, since I was not admitting to myself that this was anything more than a vacation. And that made it oddly hard that I wasn't doing anything, but I'm not sure it would have made it any better if I had some idea that I'm on a spiritual quest or a vision quest or something, which I was not. So I kind of tried to sit.

[07:44]

I drove a lot. It was cold a lot. It was mid-winter, the first trip I took in northern Arizona and New Mexico, which is really, really cold, and I didn't know that. But somewhere at the end of the trip, something shifted. And something let go. And... even though the letting go was very painful, and it was just kind of, I was just, I actually came back into the present moment, into the experience I was actually having, rather than trying to look for something outside myself. And there was a huge sense of relief. And I got back home, and Promptly went to REI and bought proper camping equipment and just kept doing it, which didn't make any sense to me or anyone else that I knew because I was really not having a good time.

[08:52]

I mean, this is my vacation, right? I'm on vacation. Not having a good time. But there was something that I needed that I needed. that some part of me knew that I needed. And the only way I could make sense of it to myself was I said, I feel like I'm a dog eating bitter herbs. You know, there's just something instinctive. And I think somehow we all have something of that feeling, something of that intuition about what we're, we can phrase it differently, what we're looking for, what we long for, what calls us, what feels true, what feels right. And we're all so different, you know, in so many ways.

[09:54]

And we look for it in so many different ways. And we often lose track of it, even when we think we're walking straight toward it. That's often when we're, unbeknownst to us, we're actually going farther and farther away from it because we're trying so hard to grab onto it, get some idea. And then we can't actually open to what's there. And it's very hard to talk about this, you know, this... unnameable, unsayable something that we resonate with. It is the unnameable. But I thought I'd just continue pointing a little bit. So I remembered this poem that somehow resonates in that place for me.

[10:56]

It's called For the Sleepwalkers, and it's by Edward Hirsch. Tonight I want to say something wonderful for the sleepwalkers who have so much faith in their legs, so much faith in the invisible arrow carved into the carpet, the worn path that leads to the stairs instead of the window, the gaping doorway instead of the seamless mirror, I love the way that sleepwalkers are willing to step out of their bodies into the night to raise their arms and welcome the darkness, palming the blank spaces, touching everything. Always they return home safely, like blind men who know it is morning by feeling shadows.

[11:59]

And always they wake up as themselves again, That's why I want to say something astonishing, like, our hearts are leaving our bodies. Our hearts are thirsty black handkerchiefs flying through the trees at night, soaking up the darkest beams of moonlight, the music of owls, the motion of wind-torn branches. And now our hearts are thick black fists, flying back to the glove of our chests. We have to learn to trust our hearts like that. We have to learn the desperate faith of sleepwalkers who rise out of their calm beds and walk through the skin of another life. We have to drink the stupefying cup of darkness and wake up to ourselves, nourished and surprised.

[13:03]

I find it so interesting that it's a poem about the sleepwalkers, but what it's talking about is waking up. But the sleepwalking, I think, is something about the conscious mind, about letting the conscious mind settle and not disturb the other, more subtle, the darker. part of our mind that is always functioning and that we're usually somewhat unaware of. We often tune it out. It can be a little inconvenient to be aware, to be feeling what's happening in this present moment. One of my favorite fascicles by Dogen Zenji, who's the founder of our school, is the Genjo Koan, actualizing the fundamental point.

[14:26]

I just want to read a few short sections from there, or several of the short sections. To carry yourself forward and experience myriad things is delusion. that myriad things come forth and experience themselves, is awakening. When we carry our minds forward, all our ideas, all our stories, all of what we create forward into the world, we're kind of leaning into our ideas. This is what is called delusion, which is... creating separation, having ideas, subject and object, except usually we're objects too. We often treat ourselves as objects, things to be fixed, corrected, made better, be a certain way.

[15:29]

That myriad things come forth in experience themselves. that we receive the world, even though the poet was talking about our hearts going out to the world in a certain sense that's our beings being receptive to the world, palming the blank spaces, touching everything, being touched by everything. I read once that our brains are something like 20% connected. The neural pathways in the brain are about 20% connections to the senses, to the world outside of our heads.

[16:38]

Eyes, ears, nose, tongue, body. And 80% is connected back in on itself. So most of the activity in the brain is a kind of an internal conversation, if you will, which means that we are literally carrying the self forward all the time. We have these feed-forward mechanisms where we see what we expect to see. And at those moments, when somehow we're not seeing what we expect to see, whether it's ourself or another person or a flower, or we're actually experiencing our body just as it is. Just as it is, not as we're thinking about it, but actually just in that wordless awareness. something shifts.

[17:43]

And I think it's something about that shift that is what we long for and what we search for. Sometimes it feels like the light's coming on suddenly. Sometimes it feels like coming home. Sometimes it feels like our heart opening. or settling more deeply into our chest. Or it feels like being breathed. I'm not breathing, I am being breathed. But again and again it's this flavor, this taste, this scent of intimacy, of non-separation, of immediacy. Nothing mediating between the experience and our awareness.

[18:51]

Not even between experience and awareness. One. Just one. When you ride in a boat and watch the shore you might suppose that the shore is moving. But when you keep your eyes closely on the boat, you can see that the boat moves. Similarly, if you examine myriad things with a confused body and mind, you might suppose that your mind and nature are permanent. When you practice intimately and return to where you are it will be clear that nothing at all has unchanging self. So often this is one of the things that's hard about entering deeply into the present moment and dropping our ideas about things because it immediately becomes so apparent that we don't have an unchanging self and neither do other people and this unsettledness can be very unsettling.

[20:12]

As that becomes familiar, as the not knowing becomes not known, but the shape and the form and the feel, if you will, of not knowing becomes familiar enough to rest in, to abide in. And there's a relief in not knowing. There's an intimacy in not knowing of just letting what is come forth, waiting a moment for the other person to speak instead of thinking of what you're going to say. of pausing when things seem to be unraveling and just seeing what it is that's unraveling without trying to fix it or change it.

[21:27]

There's an old story about the guy that goes to the mechanic and the guy lifts the hood and adjusts a little wire or something and says, OK, that'll be 80 bucks. He said, what? You spent like a minute at most. Just fix this little wire. And he said, OK. Then it's $2 for fixing the wire and $78 for knowing which wire to fix. But the mechanic knew how to be with the engine. He could actually see what was there. And most of us, most of the time, have a lot of difficulty seeing what's there. Not that there's a what that is there that we should be able to see. It's just that in that moment can we receive what's arising in that very instant of time.

[22:32]

It's not a thing, but it's a how. It's a process. It's a movement or a feeling. We all phrase it differently. from our own experience. When you find your place where you are, practice occurs, actualizing the fundamental point, When you find your way at this moment, practice occurs, actualizing the fundamental point. For the place, the way, is neither large nor small, neither yours nor others. The place, the way, has not carried over from the past and it is not merely arising now.

[23:36]

So when you find your place where you are, when we're actually here, when we're actually willing to be in this place, this moment right now, with all of its delicate and mysterious uncertainty and feeling and flavor and form, practice occurs. This is practice of bringing the mind of zazen, of bringing this completely present, intimate mind into all of our activity throughout the day. And in this we actualize the fundamental point of our practice and of our life. This is the actualization This is the realization, the making real. It's not theoretical.

[24:45]

Lights are on. It feels more real in a funny way than much of our life when we tend to have ideas about it. Here is the place. Here the way unfolds. We often have some idea that awakening or truth or whatever it is could not possibly be this here now, where it's only certain moments here and now. But over and over again, the teachings come back to, you know, here is the place, here the way unfolds, wherever you are, everywhere you are. It's not... it's not somewhere else. As long as we think it's somewhere else, we completely miss the here that is here.

[25:50]

Here is the place, here the way unfolds. The boundary of realization is not distinct, for the realization comes forth simultaneously with the mastery of Buddhadharma. Do not suppose that what you realize becomes your knowledge and is grasped by your consciousness. Although actualized immediately, the inconceivable may not be apparent. Its appearance is beyond your knowledge. The inconceivable literally means, the Japanese translation is close or secret being. And I love that, that the meaning of it is the inconceivable. But that the meaning that's given is from our close or most secret, inmost being.

[26:54]

And yet this is what has to be actualized. is what is realized in our practice. There's no awakening without practice. Practice, realization, right together. It's said that when we bow, the two hands in ga sho represent wisdom and compassion. So wisdom is this emptiness, selflessness, flux, impermanence, change, seeing things as they are, but the compassion side is

[28:05]

the manifestation, the realization. And our practice is to bring these together. Over and over again we bow. Over and over again we bring them together. We bring forward our practice. We express our practice. And even though in our practice it's like creating art, or dance, or poetry, it never quite hits the mark. There's always a feeling that's a little out of reach. It's never quite what you'd imagined. Still, we bring it forth over and over again, and there's a dance. There's a dance between our expression, our conscious minds, our study, our creation, what our activity, our doing, and this inward sense or feeling that we follow and in our humanness seek and long to express.

[29:16]

And they mutually shape and form one another in this dance. For the sleepwalkers, Tonight I want to say something wonderful for the sleepwalkers who have so much faith in their legs, so much faith in the invisible arrow carved into the carpet, the worn path that leads to the stairs instead of the window, the gaping doorway instead of the seamless mirror. I love the way that sleepwalkers are willing to step out of their bodies into the night to raise their arms and welcome the darkness, palming the blank spaces, touching everything. Always they return home safely, like blind men who know it is morning by feeling shadows.

[30:25]

And always they wake up as themselves again. That's why I want to say something astonishing, like, our hearts are leaving our bodies. Our hearts are thirsty black handkerchiefs flying through the trees at night, soaking up the darkest beams of moonlight, the music of owls, the motion of wind-torn branches. And now our hearts are thick black fists flying back to the glove of our chests. We have to learn to trust our hearts like that. We have to learn the desperate faith of sleepwalkers who rise out of their calm beds and walk through the skin of another life. We have to drink the stupefying cup of darkness and wake up to ourselves nourished and surprised. I think we have time for just a couple questions.

[31:35]

Yes. Would you say more about the secret self that you mentioned? Because sometimes I feel like I'm trying to dig her out or uncover her or find her, and I don't think that's exactly what you meant, but I'm going to be able to speak about that. So you feel like you're trying to dig out your secret self? Yes, but there's a true Maggie in there somewhere and I'm going to... I can just be the right thing and then it'll be expressed. Yes. Here is true Maggie. True Maggie is trying to dig out true Maggie. Thank you for listening to this podcast offered by the San Francisco Zen Center.

[32:47]

Our Dharma talks are offered free of charge, and this is made possible by the donations we receive. Your financial support helps us to continue to offer the Dharma. For more information, visit sfcc.org and click Giving.

[33:03]

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