And I'm so glad that it's penetrating and profiling star mark. It is this grand re-e-ed, met with over the year in a hundred thousand billion golfers. I have been able to see and listen to, to remember and accept. Good morning. You know, I hope that now you're having at least moments of sadness.

[01:14]

Maybe they're when you return to your room or sit somewhere quiet for a break and can give out a heartfelt sigh. That kind of sadness and call forth awareness. And then awareness can call forth that kind of settledness. More karmically, we're inclined to think, well, when the world stops bothering me, then I'll be settled. or when my own body starts bothering me, or when my own thoughts or feelings stop bothering me, I'll be able to settle.

[02:25]

I remember once I was an ordained monk in Thailand, and I learned to assume everything I did was wrong. I'd be sitting on the floor of my kutti, just chilling, and someone would come in and look at me aghast and say, can you see what you're doing? And I'd think, no, but I know it's wrong. You're sitting with your feet facing the Buddha statue. absolutely terrible thing to do so disrespectful okay so I remember returning to my little hut closing the door and saying ah just for a few moments there will be nobody telling me what egregious things I'm doing

[03:47]

And yet, there is a way, even though karmically, we prefer, or most of us prefer, not to be bothered. And that helps us settle. Personally, I think in many ways, it's a worthy endeavor, especially in the process of zazen. If your body is just not comfortable, if your body is distinctly uncomfortable, if your mind is racing with thoughts, if there's some deep emotions, unpleasant emotions arising, it can seem almost impossible.

[04:58]

just settle to let something have a deep acceptance of just being what is. In the Pure Land School of Buddhism, What makes it the pure land is that it's utterly conducive to settling and to practicing. And in the process of Sashin, we're tossed in to for some of us who've done many machines, somewhat familiar process.

[06:06]

And for some of you, a brand new process. And for most of us, a whole change in our routine. And so the unsettledness can have a tendency to be a persistent influence. And it challenges us. Yesterday morning I was talking about how the details of the Suzuki Roshi Anya Memorial Ceremony challenge us to be in the moment.

[07:14]

And as they draw us into the moment, it stimulates us to come forth. the moment. And so there's this combination of factors. Some part of us is in the process of settling, some part of us is deeply dedicated to settling into the moment. along with it either our own karmic constructs or the environment and what's being asked of us they stimulate a kind of unsettling and yet in the midst of that if we can find a way to attend to to give attention to

[08:31]

what's happening in the moment, whether it's an elaborate ceremony or whether it's just walking down the hall. If we can give over to that, something tends to facilitate settling. There's a place in the Genjo Con with which Kaz Tanahashi translated as, when you see forms or hear signs fully engaging body and mind, You intuit Dharma intimately.

[09:42]

You know, yesterday I was using the notion of heartfelt. Something in us is influenced when we meet the moment, when we meet it with heart, when we meet it with intention. when we meet it with attention. And yet often in the background for us, there's some unsettledness. It's not so much that we have to become conversant and skillful with every nuance of our being. It's enough that if we can just remind ourselves that we are immersing in a process.

[10:53]

We are discovering how to call forth the Dharma even in the midst of karmic influences. And this is what the forms of Zen Shishin are trying to help facilitate. They ask something of us and in giving over to what's asked, this balance between settling and awareness starts to be explored. It's not something we can rush.

[11:59]

It's not something we can force upon ourselves. if we find ourselves declaring victory, we've probably veered off into some conceptual notion of what victory and failure are. And then Dogen continues from there. And the next part is that famous phrase where he says, to study the way of enlightenment is to study the self. To study the self is to forget the self. Suzuki Roshi translated all the four translations I have here. Suzuki Roshi, they all say forget.

[13:03]

Suzuki Roshi said, go beyond. Go beyond the self. The way I think about it is that what it's saying is don't let your karmic influences, your karmic habits define what's happening in the moment. and what's engaging the moment. And so can we remind ourselves? Each time we notice mind has wandered in zazen, can we just let it settle in that moment of awareness? Can we feel

[14:05]

what has come to be in that moment. Any residual emotions, any residual shifting in your posture. Maybe the content of what you were thinking about still lingers for you. In the phrase, to study the way is to study the self. We're studying the self that arises, that has energy, that has persistence. And as we study it,

[15:06]

when we notice our mind has wandered and we allow ourselves to be just whatever has arisen in that moment, we're starting to discover what it is to settle. When we're walking down the hallway and we're being nothing but walking down the hallway, We're not leaping ahead to the destination. We're not holding on to where we just were. When we invite each moment to just be itself, yes, it's a challenge. It's the challenge of releasing the habituations of our being.

[16:13]

We're engaged in studying the self. And in this study the self, the word study, it means learning by doing. It's not like studying a book. It's we learn by doing. Very interesting because we're learning by doing what we don't know how to do. We're learning by doing what we don't know how to do. And we're learning how to do it by engaging it, not knowing how to do it. So this not knowing can feel like there's an insufficiency, like there's a lacking, there's a confusion or lack of clarity in what we're doing.

[17:30]

Or we can approach it as a learning. Somehow, when I thought of that, I thought of this poem by Pablo Neruda. I need to see because it teaches me. I don't know if I learn music or awareness, if it's a single wave or a vast existence, or only its harsh voice or its shining suggestion of fishes and ships. The fact is that until I fall asleep, I think of that as unawareness.

[18:34]

The fact is, until I fall asleep in some magnetic way, I move in the university of the waves. We are in the university of awakening. Fortunately, we don't have to know all the intricacies of the process. We don't have to know them cognitively. And if we can find the capacity within ourselves, if we can find the capacity to relate wholeheartedly. As Kaz says, we intuit the Dharma intimately.

[19:36]

It's as if in those moments of awareness, we recognize something that we intuitively know. can we engage, can we call forth the demeanor that facilitates this process? Can we approach it with extraordinary patience? It takes a lot of patience to do what you don't know how to do. Oh, that's not it. Oh, wait a minute. I forgot that piece. Fortunately, when we repeat physical things, there is such a thing as body memory.

[20:57]

And certainly in the world of Zen, where we do certain things, physical things, repeatedly, like many of us who've been doing them for years, couldn't give you a cognitive description of how to do it. But if you said, OK, well, let me take it and physically do it, then it's like we can do it. Can we give over to what our body knows what to do? Can we give over to taking a disposition, a physical disposition that invites settling? Can we listen closely to our body?

[22:01]

Can we attend to the sensations in our body and learn something about sitting in a settled way? Can we breathe into that settled body in a way that invites a settling, an acceptance? to the states of mind and the emotions in a way that doesn't feed and exacerbate what they're bringing up, the karmic issues, but more just sees them for what they are. And as we settle into Shishin,

[23:05]

this request starts to become more evident for us. You know, it might still seem to you like, oh, well, that's a lovely idea, but it's not what I'm happening, it's what's happening for me. And however we are in the process, whether it feels distant or whether it feels close. But still in its closeness, the disconnects are more obvious. It's asking for patience. In establishing patience, the first aspect

[24:07]

we can attend to is being willing to experience what impatience brings forth. Maybe in a more simple way we could say willingness to suffer when I was a monk in Thailand I always felt like I was going through some very painful very difficult very demanding process and I would watch the teacher, who always looked like he was on vacation.

[25:11]

Who always looked like, isn't this just fun, the way we get to hang around and just meditate and do things like that? Sometimes it's a journey. We start with summoning our patients. If we think it's just a matter of forbearance, really can you persuade yourself to be part of the process? Can you persuade yourself to just, okay, this is about doing what I don't know how to do.

[26:15]

And then carefully, as Kaz was saying, when there is engagement, intuitively we know how to do. what we don't know how to do. And in those moments of simple settling it becomes evident for us. And in the meantime, maybe we do have some karmic processes that we have to be patient with. noticing when your mind gets caught up in something. And of course, there's endless ways we can get caught up in our karmic makeup.

[27:29]

But one way we can do it is sort of shift the attention. We can shift the attention from the content and the intrigue of the content to almost like feeling the energy of it. Like noticing how significant is this arising psychologically? Does it have an energetic persistence? How is the sensations in the body? Do they have a disposition that feels unsettling?

[28:35]

Or is it possible to just open up and feel the sensation without changing your posture. Personally, I wouldn't say never change your posture, just endure. I would say pay close attention. Sometimes just enduring your posture is not a helpful thing for a variety of reasons. It might not be good for your body and it also, it might be sort of hardening your engagement in practice, hardening it in contrast to softening it and letting something unfold. So attending to the energy of it, we start to discover that it's not a solid thing.

[29:47]

It's an interplay of energy, particular sensations, particular thoughts, particular evoked emotions, psychological significance, and that all the time we're in that sea. We're in the influences of that sea. Pablo Neruda says, I don't know if it's a wave, I don't know if it's a particular detail, just the pain in my left ankle, or if it's the whole gestalt of the moment. It's not so much

[30:48]

that we have to catalog every aspect of the moment. Although there are Buddhist practices that do do that. But it's more that we attend to how it appears in our consciousness. There is not only a with a receptivity. And Pablo Neruda goes on to describe his process like this. It seems no small thing for a young person to have come here to live by their own fire.

[31:49]

Nevertheless, the pulse that rose and fell in this abyss, the crackling of the blue cold, the gradual wearing away of the star, the soft unfolding of the wave, the squandering snow in its foam, the quiet power out there, sure as a stone shrine in its depths, replaced my world in which were growing stubborn sorrow gathering oblivion. And my life changed suddenly as I became part of its pure movement. The quiet power out there, sure as a stone shrine in the depths, replaced my world in which were growing stubborn sorrow, gathering oblivion. And my life changed suddenly as I became part of its pure movement.

[32:55]

It's not that we can manufacture moments like that. If we think we can, there's probably... blatant grasping at what the goal of it all is. If we can remind ourselves that practice in of its nature is we're attending to a moment that's just arising. And it's offering us information about what it is. And if we approach it with the notion of, I know. The learning doesn't happen. The studying doesn't happen. If we approach it with the notion that I'm learning to do something I don't know how to do.

[34:15]

I don't know how to be this moment that hasn't arisen yet. And as we engage that process of learning to do something we don't know how to do, the learning becomes intriguing. How is it to hear that sound? Does your mind construct a scene, a happening, sanding the paint off of the building,

[35:23]

across the street? Or does it sound like an insect? Or is it swept away into oblivion by the thoughts going through your mind? It's not a matter the right association. It's a matter of experiencing the experience that's being experienced. So how to become skilled in working with your own karmic conditioning?

[36:36]

How to become patient with it? How to find in the middle a way of settling with the breath can soften, where the mind can soften. Where just this is enough. That the light in the room, the sensations in the body the rumbling of passing cars. Thank you.

[37:45]

Thank you. ... [...] . . .

[38:48]

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