Good morning. Feels like such a Northern California morning, doesn't it? Wet wood and wet grass. Feels like we're in Mendocino. So we've been sitting with a koan, which I'm going to briefly describe. And we've been working on precepts and learning about them and writing some for ourselves. And we've taken up the Heart Sutra the last couple of days. So these three things are swirling around. Sort of imagine them swirling around like in an eddy. Mixing. So welcome to people who are joining us for Yinshixin and the rest of us, this is our third day.

[01:02]

We've had quite a lot of Zazen so far. To catch everybody up on the koan, I'm going to tell it very briefly and then say something brief about the commentary, movement's commentary. The case is case 35, Seijo and her soul are separated. And the story goes like this. Goso died about a hundred years before Dogen was born. Goso asks his monks, Seijo's being and her soul are separated, which is the real one? We fuss a little bit in some of the prior talks about the word soul and how we don't usually use that. Graciously, Linda took the Chinese characters to Kaz, who comes back with the information that in the Chinese question, the character for soul and the character for being are the same character.

[02:09]

So they got a leg up in the Chinese version. Because it is a trick question, you have to argue with the premise in order to get to the no difference. There's, you know, not one, not two plays. So the story goes like this. Sei-Jo, Sei is her given name, Jo is a diminutive for girl, is a lovely, adored girl by her father. And she has a longtime childhood playmate in Ochu, who's a cousin And they play so well together, the father jokingly says to them, at some point you ought to be married, or I bet you'll be married someday. And by this, they take that as a promise of betrothal. And when the time comes and they are grown up, they do fall in love, and the father finds another husband, per se. And they are heartbroken. And Ochu, not telling anyone, not telling Se decides he can't tolerate this and he leaves town.

[03:16]

So this is the first separation and later we can talk about the skillful means of how he manages that separation by not telling anybody. In the night as he's going down river he sees a shadowy figure running alongside the boat and he pulls over and lo and behold it's Se and they embrace and they realize they can't go back and they They settle down in a faraway province and have two children and five years go by and Say finds that she's discontent. And she says to Ochu, I miss my father. I don't know what to do. And he said, I'm homesick as well. We should go back and ask for forgiveness. And that's what they do. As they come into the town, Ochu says, I'll go ahead. And he goes to the dad and makes the apology. And the dad's name is Chokan. He's very puzzled.

[04:17]

He says, that can't be. What you're telling me can't be. Because Sei is in the other room in bed. She hasn't moved since you left or said a word. And he takes Ochu to show him. And Ochu goes down to the boat to get the other Sei. And on hearing this, the Sei in the bed smiles and gets up, and as they approach one another, they merge into one. And Sei says to her father, I didn't know. I was separated. It was as if I were in a dream. So this is a story about separation on so many levels, and that's why we've been turning it. We've been turning it as a story about separation and a story about reunion. Particularly the commentary though points, I'm gonna read it and then I'm gonna give you the cliff notes for it. If you're enlightened in the truth of the koan, you will know that coming out of one husk and getting into another is like a traveler's putting up in hotels.

[05:22]

In case you are not yet enlightened, do not rush around blindly. When suddenly earth, water, fire, and air are decomposed, you will be like a crab falling into boiling water, struggling with its seven arms and eight legs. Do not say then, I have not warned you. So if you are enlightened, if you are awakened to the reality of our oneness, with everything, then when it comes time to make a transition, it will be like just moving from one hotel to another. And if you're not awakened to that, don't rush around, sit down in zazen. Otherwise, when you come to that transition, you'll be like a crab falling into boiling water, flailing and objecting.

[06:27]

And the last, don't say I didn't warn you as an exhortation, right? An encouragement to sit more Zazen, you know. So what I would like to do is talk about Zazen, and I'd also like to talk about the other workshop place where we work on ourselves, which is Sangha practice. And then I want to see if we have time to check in about how people are doing on their third day, particularly what's coming up. So, it's not easy practice, this Zazen practice. I heard in a Dharma talk that Greg Denny gave one time, he said, you know, there's always a peevish day in Sashin.

[07:35]

And I really like the word peevish because it captures that kind of irritability about small things, the micro complaints that come up because after all, there's not that much happening. the schedule, there's the food, there's the person sitting next to you, there's your body and how tired or achy it is. I mean, there's a limited number of things to focus on. And I was grateful that he said that because there's a hump, at least there is for me, that you get over, that I get over before I surrender to the schedule and let it be. This time, there's some way in which this practice period and sitting twice a day has acted like a slow motion session. So actually, it wasn't a whole day for me, a whole peevish day, it was a peevish morning in which I didn't like the mood I was in.

[08:41]

And I worked with myself with that. And then my next complaint was that had a blank mind, which was worrisome because I was gonna give this talk and I guess I wanted to have thoughts or something, but I talked to a surgeon about it later and said, blank mind, actually, that's pretty good. So, what is the point here? We're in training to see things as they really are, to accept things as they really are, to surrender to things as they really are. meeting those micro-moments is the training so that when you hit the boiling water there's an acceptance there, that's the path, right? But I... I also have been sitting with another koan during this practice period, a personal one for me, which is, I can't tell you how many people have encouraged me to enjoy myself in this process, which is actually not something that I had occurred to me to do.

[09:59]

What do you want me to do? So this was actually radical, radical advice for me. That's not where my habitual mind goes, which is to enjoy myself. Mostly I'm dealing with my resistances to accepting the way things are by sort of what we would call prohibitory precepts. You know, don't do this, don't do that, and so forth. The idea of transforming it into a permissive precept was really wonderful. There's a kind of opening about enjoying and embracing what is.

[11:08]

So what does it mean? What does it meant? Here's where I've gone with it. It means for me not having control over the ride, not having my hands on the steering wheel, but enjoying the ride. And it means when I have gotten myself into a tizzy, which I do periodically, When I evoke this idea, it's like those two things are incompatible. It's almost like the neurotransmitters for one don't cancel the neurotransmitters for the other. So when you're enjoying, it's actually, you're tizzy free. It's letting go of striving. It's letting go of the idea of expectation and particularly perfection. I mean, I noticed that. There's one thing that gets called up around Zen practice because things are so detailed and so formed, the forms are so wonderful and elaborate that there is some idea of doing it perfectly.

[12:14]

I mean, I can't tell you the number of times I've heard a tease that people, you know, talk about their concern about hitting the bells correctly and so forth and how that, how we transform this practice into something about right and wrong, I guess. It's also, I guess, for me, especially important, learning over and over again, coming up against, it's not about the right answer, it's about responding appropriately. It's about meeting the moment. But I haven't heard us, maybe I missed it, but I haven't heard us talking about enjoying the practice that much. Maybe it's because it sounds too much like preference, but I kind of went on a search to see what Suzuki Roshi had to say about it, so I'm gonna read some things from him. Just sit and be present with this body-mind as it is.

[13:19]

Enjoy your breathing. not trying to avoid thoughts and feelings, just breathe into them. Do not try to do anything. Knowing that your life is short, to enjoy it day by day, moment after moment, is the life of form is form and emptiness is emptiness. Maybe everyone will struggle because of physical agony or spiritual agony, but that is not a problem. We should be very grateful to have a limited body like mine or like yours. If you have a limitless life, it would be a great problem for you. A human being is a human being. We can enjoy our life only with our limited body. This limitation is vital for us. Without limitation, nothing exists, so we should enjoy the limitation, weak body, strong body, man or woman.

[14:28]

The only way to enjoy our life is to enjoy the limitation that is given to us. So, sitting with this koan, it has seemed to me, I mean, one of the thoughts that's gone around in this, Eddie, is, the separation is suffering. And then I went, no, suffering is separation. And that kept kind of going back and forth. And yesterday when we were talking about the Heart Sutra, I listened, maybe I've heard it, how many times have I heard it, but this line just stopped me. Avalokiteshvara Bodhisattva, when practicing deeply the Prajnaparamita perceived that all five skandhas in their own being are empty and was saved from all suffering.

[15:32]

Now that's radical. I've been pondering whether I believe that or not. All suffering? The suffering on my knee? All suffering? But this is... Yeah. Is it true? Do I believe that? Are we saved from all suffering? That's what we say. That's the first line of the Heart Sutra. Right? I mean, this is what the crab needs to know. Right? to merge with all circumstances, to enjoy the boiling water. So in these micro moments of zazen in which we separate ourselves from ourselves or from the person sitting next to us or from the schedule or from our thoughts, we are in training.

[16:39]

We're training ourselves to find enjoyment and to find a way to embrace it all. I do want to be careful about this because there are some traps. I'm not talking about enjoying pain for the sake of pain. That's another matter for another time. And I do think it's important to discern when you sit through pain and when you change your circumstances and not hurt your foreign body. And our Abbott is demonstrating that right now and taking care of his knee. I also think that the other place where we work on this is in Sangha practice. Makes me think of the category books that are kind of book-ending.

[17:44]

Returning to silence, you have to say something. So not too long from now, we'll go to work period. and talk to each other or work with each other in a different way than sitting on the cushion. And certainly one of the things this sangha has come to understand and know about itself is that there are things that we could learn and do better at in terms of our skillful means with one another, particularly in the dimension of separation and reunion. Because sangha, I said this, I guess, but it's another workshop, it's a Petri dish where the things that we try to sort out on the cushion are coming up, right? Some of the greatest challenges have arisen for me in the Sangha practice that I've taken back to the cushion, and then you still have to go back and say something.

[18:49]

And so I want to try to see what that is about. And how can we maybe think about writing precepts for ourselves about this? So I'm going to plant that as a question. So first I want to talk about reactivity. I want to talk particularly about my own history with reactivity. There was a time in my life, a number of years ago, I'm grateful to say decades, I'm not sure that I'm ever free of it, but there was a time when I was much more reactive than I am now. And in fact, I had an intimate who, said after observing one encounter I had in which I was very upset, he did not see you coming, you were like a buzzsaw. And for about 15 seconds I went, yes.

[19:54]

Hear me roar. And it really only lasted that long because what I noticed and what is the amount of the price that I and other people paid for my reactivity. On every single occasion, I didn't get what I wanted. I had to clean up a mess, often by myself. And I had to figure out how to repair the relationship before I could get myself heard, before what was really important to me was actually effective and communicated. So what I said to myself was, okay, here's your rule. I made a precept. I wasn't a Zen student then, but I made a precept for myself. I said, when you go off like that in the heat of, in the middle of your upset, in the middle of your anger, that's when you've lost.

[21:00]

So don't do that. Don't do that. And then the question is, what's next? What do you do after that? Well, then comes the tremendous amount of work, that there's a tremendous amount of work after that. I liken it to, I've said this before, but I'll work on this analogy, that anger, that reactivity is a fire alarm that tells you something's wrong. There's something awry in a relationship, but it has no, that's data. That's really important data, should not be overlooked. But it doesn't tell you anything about where the fire is, what kind of a fire it is, and what you should do to make it different or better, or what you should do to bring yourself back into alignment with the situation. The first way I would suggest that we do oftentimes is to sit on a cushion and sort out what is the feeling, what is it? Is it really anger or is there hurt there or is there fear there or what covers what?

[22:07]

I mean, what's the complexity and what's the texture of the anger or the feeling? And the goal at that point is to get to a place where you can name it and so you can be a little, have a witness to the feeling and have part of yourself witnessing as well as feeling. So the feeling doesn't go away but there's another part that sees it and begins to understand it. Another layer of sorting is what am I bringing from my situation and my karmic load and projecting on this situation and what am I really seeing that's actually there that is affecting me? And how do I sort, how does that sorting, what pile is over here and what pile is over there? And sometimes that, is better done with help, with a consultant, or in dokusan, or practice discussion, or with a therapist, whatever works.

[23:13]

This I say without hesitation, all relationships of any importance are haunted. They're haunted by my past, and they're haunted by the other person's past. And the diabolical nature of us is we can see the other person's past better than we can see ourselves. And the reason we can do that is because we know when the other person is treating us as somebody other than who we are, when they're projecting onto us and we feel othered, and we get that. And then what do you do under those circumstances? And one of the things I recommend is that you don't go and say, you're projecting onto me. You know, then the skillful means set in about how you talk about how something is landing on you in a way that can be heard. One of the pieces of research around anger is that we are not teapots, we are not teakettles, we don't benefit from venting.

[24:17]

That actually just embeds it deeper, rehearses it more solidly. It doesn't benefit you, me, if I do it. What is effective is effective action that means that the situation is remedied or you get heard or something changes as a result of what the upset is. Things are back into alignment. So in terms of the ghosting, one of the things that I think would be helpful is to have a precept which said that we each are the expert of ourselves only, and we ask the other to report in on them, and then we believe them. whatever their current understanding is about where they are and who they are, so that we can have a beginning conversation where we're in a situation where we're explaining ourselves and not telling the other person what they're doing.

[25:27]

I mean, the image that I have about it is going from you this, no you this, no you this, no you this, to shoulder to shoulder, what just happened? What part did I play in it? What part did I play in it? Oh, I see, I see, that kind of analysis that is a joint shared analysis in which it's not, it's about what just happened to us? How do we hold this together? It presupposes that we're dedicated to doing this work, and that's what I think is so valuable about Sangha, because I don't know of other groups where the dedication to intentionality is so powerful. And it would be nice if we had an intentionality also to be in relationship, in continuous relationship, so far as that is possible. So extending Alan's precept about not abandoning

[26:29]

I would say not abandoning, and if you have to, take some space that you do it skillfully in some way, that you figure out how to say, I need space. And recognizing that, I'm just gonna kind of, Let's skip to the chase here, but there are some situations where it may not be possible to stay because the trauma or the triggering is too intense to be able to recover each time fast enough for the relationship to be working. I have a friend who said, which was really a revelation to me at the time, she said, relationships are work, but mostly they should be working. And when you're finding yourself in a situation where it's not working most of the time, there may be a need to step away and figure out how to work that differently, so. This is Suzuki Roshi again, which I, it feels like a, well, I'll just say it.

[27:39]

Our practice is constantly losing our balance against a background of perfect balance. That is what repose is about, re-pose. To lose our balance constantly, but to return to some upright, dignified posture. So... I was going to say at the beginning, but I want to say it again. I mean, say it for the first time. I want to thank Peter for such a deep, silent session. It's really lovely and thank you for all your help. Do you have thoughts? Yes, James. What do I bring to this?

[28:52]

What does the other person bring to this? And assuming that the other person is the expert on themselves and leaving everything to me to say what they want to say. Lightspeed.

[29:54]

When you see somebody where every instinct in your body cries out, there's no way you can believe this person. How do we deal with that? How do we, how might I've been very worried about him from a psychological point of view. And that is frightening from a national point of view, but I think he's not in good shape. And I think we should add him to our well-being. I think we should do a well-being ceremony, actually, because I don't think it serves us for him to not be in good shape. And I don't know how he emerges from this.

[30:57]

So, I think the other thing that I, what I also want to do is to give my support to the people who are trying to resolve, who are doing the work of bringing this, of guiding the country trying to bring some sanity to this situation, whatever way that is in terms of email support or money support or well-being list support. But I think it's worth holding all of that in our hearts. Yes, but I think you should also trust that people will tell you who they are and believe them when they do.

[32:28]

And he's told us who he is and we should believe him. So believe your eyes and your instinct. I'm sorry. Penelope? I think I'm hearing some distinction between... Is that Maya Angelou who said that initially? If someone tells you who they are, believe them. Is it? Yeah. In any case, there's a difference between someone with the capacity to be able to actually say who they are and have a sense of that, and somebody who's in such radical kind of denial about who they are and what they're putting out in the world, that there's a huge discrepancy between their self-description

[33:35]

and their behavior that you may be observing. Right. That's right. Thank you. Thank you. Good point. Alan? I was caught by the, you know, the analogy of the crab in the pot. As I put myself in that place, which I think we all And is there any way to be thrown into a boiling pot without there being suffering? It's a real question. of suffering.

[34:43]

And honestly, I'm not sure I believe in the end of suffering in this life. I can believe it in certain circumstances. I can believe it, you know, I can know how to, I have tools for working on it in emotional and physical situations, but are there Are there some things where suffering is just what's going to happen? You are making a distinction between pain and suffering? Well, that's the usual distinction to make. You know, obviously the cram is going to feel pain. Is there a separation between pain and suffering in certain moments?

[35:55]

What do you think? I don't know. What do you think about the craft? I think that there is pain that is not all right with me and there's pain that is all right with me. And that it feels, those pains feel different. And that's as far, that's as much as I know from my own body. Dean. Thank you. I'm gonna get a little personal because I think it's easier to understand it, but you've seen me in this pot of boiling water recently And from the time I was in the boiling water and very aware of the pain and the suffering, and not long time from that, the pain and the suffering shifted.

[37:02]

Because you gave me these words that did something. I'm still in the boiling water. I think I'm still in the boiling water. But, or maybe I'm just keeping my feet in it, I'm not sure, but I don't understand, because I'm not out of this. So, something happened, though, and gave me some relief, but I'm not out of a pot. And I don't really understand how it happened, or why it happened, but I'm aware that when I feel the heat again. So what is that to be in the fire, to be in the boiling water and live with the boiling water?

[38:08]

How does that happen? How did that happen? Did you let go of something? I don't think I did. Something changed for that brief period, but I don't think I'm out of the pot, and I don't understand exactly what it was, but I'm trying to grab it. I don't know, but there's something in here that I'm accepting it, I love it, it's great. I feel like there's a lesson there if I can absorb a little bit more of what happened. Any clue? No, I think we'd need to talk some more. We can do that.

[39:09]

Susan, did you? Linda? This is in response to what Alan just said. If Buddha taught the end of suffering, he didn't guarantee it for the rest of your life. So maybe that's a mistake that we might make. Buddha teaches the end of suffering, in a particular moment of circumstances. And we can learn about that. But that doesn't mean there's no suffering for the rest of your life. And that would free me from expecting that. Peter? Just a thought as Linda was speaking, maybe thinking it's an end of suffering for the end of your life.

[40:15]

So maybe thinking that the end of suffering is for all time, for the rest of your life, is the same mistake as believing in permanence. which we all wanna do. We do, wanna hang on to that. Let's see, Ross and then John. Your commentary on Se and her soul being separated reminded me of the discussion around the analytic and the syncretic side. And I wanna know what you think about because I'm picking apart, and that tends to be where I suffer, where I'm starting to grade pros and cons of the things that I'm seeing in the analytic side, whereas the synthesis side is just accepting all of these pieces.

[41:36]

And I had a flash on some of the story when Sivagrishi came to him and said, just being alive is enough. And for me, when I remember that, That is kind of acceptance of my analytic side and my syncretic side. And that I think it has a more holistic feel of just being alive. I wonder what you think of that analysis. Sounds good to me. Mediation, there's all these separate parts. harmony of the synthesis of these two so-called two sides. Is that just being human? Is that enough? He's sending me down the mediation road.

[42:38]

Well, what comes to mind, I'll just work on this a little bit, what comes to mind is that in mediation what happens is that people come in locked in positions and you say to them, why do you want X? Why do you want joint custody? Because it's fair. What do you mean by joint custody? I don't know. And so what you do is you make an inquiry about actually how they want to live their life in the nitty gritty. Well, what about Monday? And what about Tuesday? And what about Wednesday? And so forth. And you work your way through the picture that they have. And you do that on both sides. And you realize that when people are presenting positions that actually they have stepped away from what their actual interests are. And when you can get to the point where you're talking about what people's interests are, you can say to them, the universe is big enough for your interests to be met here. We can figure out a way. There is a solution we can find that meets everybody's needs. If we hang out long enough through the anxiety of not knowing. And the anxiety of not knowing is about, oh, it's a zero-sum game.

[43:47]

If I get something, they don't get it. And if they get it, I don't. And that's the lockdown. And figuring out how to get out of the lockdown takes confidence, This actually goes, it's actually helpful to get back to the Sangha practice because we could say that to each other as well in relationship. I want you to have your needs met and I know you want me to have my needs met. How can we move forward with that understanding that that's our pledge? And if we start there, then we might be able to unlock the positional place, getting back to fundamentals, what really matters. Understanding that once you get to interest, there are a thousand ways of satisfying interest. Positions are just one position. I have no idea if that answers, it comes in quite close to what you were talking about.

[44:51]

Okay. John and then Bruce. Thinking about the crab and what Alan was saying and also thinking about asylum practice to me are kind of similar. Thank you. The crab is in pain, no doubt, and we can't analyze whether he's suffering or not. by throwing me into boiling water the second. And what I translated and have been going around quipping, the great First Noble Truth, which is, life is pain, suffering is optional, right? Except for that when we get into the suffering, we have to back out and look for our options, just like you suggested with the relationship counseling, right? find a larger universe, get bigger and see that there are solutions.

[45:57]

And yes, there's pain, but is it not a step to the next thing? You know, I had a teacher that kept saying to me, open your heart, it was Kung Fu, open your heart. And I was always walking around like this, and you don't see me that way anymore because I had my whole chest broken. And all of my cartilage and several ribs and the carcina, all messed up. But the therapy was to stand like this and hold my body so, such that it could rebuild and, coincidentally, open my heart. So I was actually meditating on, this may hurt, but I'm freeing myself from suffering. And so, I just don't... I really wish people wouldn't boil crabs. But, seriously. But anyway, that aside, I think that when we fall into pain and we begin to suffer, this is both inevitable, I think.

[47:03]

But then backing out of suffering doesn't, if we say, oh, the pain is going to continue, what can I do? Well, we have to separate pain from suffering then. And then so now, yes, my knee really hurts, but I'm working on my zazen, but I'm working on my posture, but I'm working you know, in the larger universe and find the non-suffering outcome of it. So pain is inevitable, suffering is seemingly optional. I don't believe they were ever separated. I think that's the illusion.

[48:05]

The story is about how we don't know that we're whole. And that we suffer because we don't know that we're whole. We can't be separated. It's the same character. That's what the Chinese clue is. It's a trick question. She's separated from her point of view. From her point of view, she's separated. Well, I like your answer. When I was studying with Suzuki Yoshi, we were all sitting there, you know, painful knees, and what he always said was, be one with the pain.

[49:25]

The only way to escape from pain is to be totally one with it. We're always trying to escape, and escape is what causes suffering. As long as you don't like it, You suffer. So it's a matter of do you like it, or do you don't like it. Liking it or not liking it makes no difference at all. Except that you throw yourself into the realm of suffering. You become the craft. When you decide you don't like it. Or like it. That's why when you sit in death it's not a matter of liking it or not liking it. It's a matter of reality. How to not escape. You only escape by accepting. The more you try to pull yourself away, the more you suffer. Pain is pain, that's right, suffering is suffering. They're not related to each other. It's our attitude that causes the problem.

[50:26]

Well, you know, that's natural. It's natural. This is the Saha world, the world of suffering. You can't make, you can't change it. You can change the world. You can change the world by merging with reality. Anyway, you don't have to do that. We're still working on it. It seems like what you keep saying and what I just heard It all comes down to relationship, like in that story yesterday that Sojin told about seeing Bruce asleep, and he related the thoughts that went through his mind, and then he got to a point where he said, and I realized I could judge him, but he didn't.

[51:32]

He said, I didn't judge him because I thought Well, I fall asleep sometimes too. And so to me right at that point was, that was the connection, that was the source of the relationship, and that was the place of practice. And it seems like we have that choice whenever we realize we're in a situation that begins to be difficult, that we have that choice and it's based on some kind of relationship. And I really liked the way you talked about the relationship between the two settings. Thank you. And it's 11.20. But you can go a little bit if you want. One more. Anybody? I have a question. You said in your first talk you said that Seijo, you viewed her as a depressed person.

[52:38]

You were talking about your background, your work, and you said, you know, as a depressed, you know, she's a depressed person. Can I argue with the setup? I listened to the, I listened to the talk about the hunches. I'm curious about, Have you, has anything shifted, or did you see her as a true person, or a true self, as opposed to a depressed person? And if you did, was there any realization or sensation if you, that flipped inside, oh, not a depressed person, a true self, and what's that about? What I meant to say, if I didn't say it, was that it was hard for me not to project my own experience onto the Koan and that I imagine that having a story that elaborate allows us to project our circumstances onto the Koan and read into it what we think is happening with her.

[53:48]

And because I had this powerful experience of my own, I so saw it that way that I had to work to get it on the other side. I mean, to get it, to have other options, other ways of seeing. Did I, I think your question is, did something change for me seeing it differently? I think so, yes. I mean, I think working this koan changed my way of thinking about that time of my life and the decision I made and how I understand that. And I tell this story to myself and to other people differently now than I did before. At the time, nor ever since until now, Did I ever see that as a turning point that led me out of the situation, that I dropped the binary challenge that I was in?

[54:57]

And in my current day eyes, I see what I did to get beyond that. I'm giving my 2017 year old self is giving my 1966 year old self more credit than she gave herself at the time.

[55:17]

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