Good morning. Good morning. You OK with a cushion under your knees? OK. Hardcore. I'd like to dedicate this morning's time of practice to the remembrance and passing over of Paul Wellstone and his wife and daughter, who died in a plane crash as he was traveling around Minnesota with his campaign to be reelected. As I'm sure many of you know, he was a lone voice speaking out in the Senate very actively against the proposed war in Iraq. There are of course those voices, but I think for many people these days there's a certain fear about speaking out and a certain discouragement that what difference will it make?

[01:21]

But of course we never know. I recently received a calendar from Hirata Roshi. who's a Zen master that I do a little practice with and hold in very high regard. And I want to read a statement by a great Japanese Zen master and Hirata Roshi's commentary. But before I do, I want to make a couple of observations. And Paul Wellstone's death is of course a great reminder about what I'm about to bring up, which is that for many of us, we have the tendency to live as though we're going to live forever, or at least

[02:33]

some number of years. And in the Buddhist tradition, there is this pretty continual reminder that we all will die. We don't know when or how. Death is inevitable. Death can come at any time. You who pay attention Don't waste time. On the ham, the wooden plank that's hit to call people to meditation in Zen places, there's often a message to the effect of practice as though your head is on fire. Some admonition about don't waste time. In the current New Yorker, there's an article by Jerome Groupman, who whenever I notice that he has a piece in the New Yorker, I go and read that first.

[03:56]

I find what he has to say. contemporary doctor in the United States. Very interesting. And in this article, he talks about how doctors are not prepared at all for telling their patients that they will die. And he lays out with several examples what happens as a result of that. and describes his own awkwardness and ineffectiveness in telling somebody what's so. And how ill-equipped he and his colleagues tend to feel in the face of having someone for whom there is no known treatment, and for whom all the indications are that they will die sooner rather than later, albeit that no one actually ever really knows.

[05:12]

And I think what he's writing about in terms of what happens for doctors in this country and in this culture is actually reflective of some turning away that is in our culture. One of the impoverishments, I think. Any of us who've had the opportunity to be with someone who knew that they were approaching their own dying, their own death, there is and can be a remarkable opening and resolution with all that one has carried and been unresolved about. Arna and I just were at Mount Baldy for a five-day retreat.

[06:22]

on what is sometimes called ordinary mind. I love the language because ordinary mind seems so remote to many of us. That is the mind that is vast and spacious. The mind that we experience when we are present. the mind that every single one of us has, but so covered over by conditioning, by reactivity, that we don't know how to access that capacity of mind, which is, from my experience, both ordinary and extraordinary. So let me read this quote from the Sixth Patriarch.

[07:38]

While there is North and South in people, there is no North or South in Buddha nature. In the calendar that Hirata Roshi just sent, he did this wonderful big calligraphy that translates as, oh, great all-embracing mind. So many different ways of talking about, but the talking itself isn't quite it, so keep that in mind. So this is Hirata Roshi's commentary. In humans, the wisdom about which Yosai Zenji, the Sixth Patriarch, is writing is just this great all-embracing mind. We are all endowed with this great mind which embraces everything, and we are all born with it equally.

[08:45]

But if we don't first believe in it, peace will not be born. Here we must all become humble, respect each other's opinion, communicate well with each other, and follow the middle way. These are most important. If we can realize these, it is still a path which requires working receptively for a long time. I think that word, receptively, is very important. It is not possible if we are not enduring and extremely patient while talking with each other and not sparing any effort. To build a society based on love, to create a world of peace, this is the eternal world of all people and the most important job we have.

[09:49]

It cannot happen by being in a hurry. We are all endowed from birth with the wisdom that knows this kind of patience and this way of seeing the whole picture in a wide way. And then there's this poem by the Sixth Patriarch. I think you'll like this. Oh great all-embracing mind, round and complete like a huge mirror, with nothing extra, with nothing missing. It is impossible to measure the height of heaven, but mind is above heaven. It is impossible to measure the thickness of the earth, yet the mind is below the earth. The radiance of the sun and the moon are never exhausted, yet the mind is in front of the radiance of the sun and the moon.

[11:02]

The four seasons dance in accordance with us. The sun and the moon turn for us. Oh, great all-embracing mind." And then Bill threw in for good measure this wonderful poem of Kabir's. Inside this clay jug there are canyons and pine mountains and the maker of canyons and pine mountains. All seven oceans are inside and hundreds of millions of stars. Now of course, the big difficulty with this poetic and inferring manner of Japanese Zen in particular, the difficulty is in our not always knowing quite how to go about this process of first seeing conditioning

[12:21]

and then beginning to dismantle, dissolve, transform our familiar conditioned patterns. When I first awakened this morning, what arose in my mind was how our coming together and practicing together every couple of weeks is a chance for us to return to the process of settling the body, bringing attention and resting in the body and breath, cultivating our capacity for stability and alignment classically the process called Samatha, one pointed attention.

[13:32]

And of course, not just in the beginning of meditation practice, but periodically throughout our experience in meditation, we have to come back to the cultivation of arranging the physical body in that manner that is what accompanies the quality of stable and energized attention. I actually hadn't thought about this until this last retreat. I hadn't thought about what I'm about to say for some while, but a number of years ago, Bill and I brought my mother to live with us for a year. And as those of you who've heard me tell my mother stories, mother as teacher stories, you may remember that the relationship that she and I had for much of our lives was, I would say, fraught.

[14:52]

At a certain point, I actually began to actually practice seeing my mother as my teacher, because it was in that relationship that I could so consistently see my conditioned mind, my patterning around reactivity. But in addition to that, I also got to see her suffering and the causes and conditions for her suffering. Which that seeing was what made it possible for me to begin to have a much more open and kindly relationship with her and her lifetime. of suffering and cultivated aversion.

[16:03]

During that year that she lived with us, I was unable to sit cross-legged. This was in the days when I could still sit cross-legged, which, by the way, I may return to. The hip surgeon said, we'll replace your hip and you can sit cross-legged again. Maybe. During that year, I had such extreme tightness in the hips and legs that I found sitting cross-legged excruciatingly painful. So my practice was mostly sitting in a chair and a lot of walking meditation. And of course, I didn't put that change in my experience with what was registering in the physical body.

[17:12]

And I think I had not yet come to trust how truthful the body is. But the day we moved her to a convalescent home, nearby, I could sit cross-legged. I mean, like that. So don't think that once you've developed some ease in sitting, well, now I've done that, like it's a done deal. Enjoy sitting in whatever way you can, day by day. Use whatever difficulties arise, whatever discomfort arises in the physical body as the opportunity to cultivate our capacity to be present with everything.

[18:21]

with whatever arises. I had quite a remarkable experience of what I'm talking about during this retreat. The first couple of days I felt very constricted in what I was able to do sitting in the teaching seat. And as soon as I accepted, oh, this is what's so, I'm working within the circumstances that are set by the person I'm teaching with, and my experience is of a kind of constriction. And I just sat with the experience of limitation. And almost immediately what arose was go deep.

[19:33]

And of course, I no longer felt boxed in. How often, when we find ourselves in some situation, including in the circumstances of formal sitting meditation, especially when we're sitting with other people, do we have attention go to, how can I change things externally? This current New Yorker also has a very amusing series of letters between George W. Bush and Saddam Hussein in which George Bush is proposing that they have a duel.

[20:44]

And Saddam Hussein's responses are invective in saying, oh, that was fun. And having George Bush write something, some particularly uncharitable characteristic and Saddam Hussein saying, well, that's good. I'm going to use that. How quickly we go to wanting to bring about the end of our suffering by getting something out there to change. some circumstance, how another person is behaving, how hard it is to begin to understand that the beneficial focus is

[21:59]

initially cultivating our capacity to rest in the body and on the breath. And how from that cultivation we can then begin to develop a kind of ground of being present and open in which we begin to see our conditioning And once we can see, that's the stepping on this path of liberation from suffering. Nearly six weeks after Tenzin Pamo's visit, we now have copies of her book, which I want to recommend to all of you.

[23:20]

She's very clear. Those of you who heard her teaching here had some taste, even when she was as tired as she was that evening, with how clear she can be. And she has two sections in the book on shamatha, or one-pointed awareness practice, and on vipassana, or insight practice. Very, very clear expositions. It's, from my standpoint, a great boost to be able to have that taste in being around someone who's farther along in the path.

[24:23]

So, I think maybe that's as much as I want to say. I'm interested in questions or things you'd like to talk about this morning. Yes? When you said you went deep during that seminar you were giving, could you be a little more specific? Would you be able to describe a technique one might use for what the approach was. Well, what I'm describing is a reaction on my part to being co-teaching a retreat where the person I'm teaching with has a certain requirement for control that on the surface doesn't leave me much room to take the teaching seat. But of course, that's reaction.

[25:44]

That's only seeing what's on the schedule, what's announced. And of course, in this particular format, this colleague and I have been teaching together for some while, It's not that the format really has changed. This is pretty much the way it's been. And my slot, if you will, is to be in the meditation room. And my colleague does all the interviews. And of course, one of the marvels is how much I have access to how people are doing and what's going on in their meditation. from our being in the meditation hall together and just paying attention to my own direct experience without language that I have a lot of trust in.

[26:50]

But that sense of, oh, go deep, was a kind of opening, not this way, but this way, actually this way. where I began to see the possibilities for engaging with people, which I tend to do anyway, but maybe a little more thoroughly or more fully with respect to the details of what I saw in their posture that might make a difference in terms of the kinds of meditations that people were doing. And I didn't. There was no announcement that I was available to meet with people, but I realized if anybody wants to meet with me I'm available.

[27:57]

And by the end of the retreat I had some significant contact with 21 out of 29 people. Not out of doing anything, not out of making an announcement, but simply out of some sense of spaciousness in my own mind stream. So then did the students come to you of their own accord? Yeah, they did. There was somebody they could talk to about scheduling a time to see me, which was fine. But you see, in a situation like that, it's very easy to get caught with trying to change the externals, make announcements, get some structure. And actually, none of that was even appropriate, much less necessary.

[29:01]

But how often do we find ourselves in a situation where we feel boxed in And we get caught with fighting what we see as the edges of the box. Resisting and fighting and arguing about the box. And we end up using a huge amount of energy fighting the externals trying to get someone else to see things my way, trying to get someone to change their behavior because then that would mean I could do blah, [...] blah. And my experience is that there are possibilities that we often have no sense of until they manifest, until they arise.

[30:05]

possibility that arises out of the spaciousness of the mind. Rather than arguing, fighting against, pushing against, resisting what's so, what happens when I return to right now this is what's so? Exhale. Are the three energy centers aligned? Do I have a sense of gravity? Breath in, breath out. Especially in the kind of situation I'm talking about, setting a very spacious energy field. And the quality for me right now of willingness to be present with what's so. So if one felt trapped in a situation, I do enjoy your metaphor of going deep. That would mean perhaps one could just tap into one's own wellspring Absolutely. But I'm not actually talking about metaphor.

[31:08]

I'm talking about an actual opening to the spaciousness which is already there. Not metaphorically, but actually there. There may be some view that I've got this little fence around me, but actually it's only here. So that capacity to go deep and to keep looking at the sky. There's a wonderful meditation in the Tibetan tradition called sky gazing, where you look up into this clear blue sky, not where the sun is, but with the sun behind you so you don't hurt your eyes. Just letting the gaze rest on the sky as a way of beginning to taste the sky-like spaciousness of mind. It's a great practice for uncovering the experience of that quality of mind which in the busyness of our daily lives we either don't know or can easily forget.

[32:27]

Oh, great. Uni? I was really interested in what you were saying about not being able to cross your legs when your mother was here and having a connection between the body and what was happening with your not getting the correct words, but the programming around how you interact with your mother. I really wonder about how that is connected to holding, stress holding, the world and our issues in different parts of our body. And if you could speak a little more about that and how to get clarity of when it's happening and to get some release.

[33:41]

Well, you know, the patterns that we carry habitually of constricting, whether it's in muscles or tendons or organs in the body or different parts of the body, I sometimes tell Bill he looks like he's left the coat hanger in his shirt. In the jaw, you know, my mother and I had a battle from the minute I was, probably before I was born. And her litany was, don't set your jaw against me, young woman. And of course, that's exactly what I said. My experience with habitual, this is what I'm talking about when I talk about conditioned patterns. When I began to pay, when I began to, in sitting down and being still on a regular basis, began to be aware of habitual constriction, for example in the jaw, being able to register what was so familiar that

[34:56]

I've never paid much attention to clenching, teeth grinding, etc. Didn't put it all together until I practiced sitting down, being quiet, letting attention settle in the body. And my experience is that I have to first see and experience constricting. And the minute I see this, I have the possibility of exhaling. Now, if you have some area in the body where there is what we would call pain, some physical discomfort that may be anything from mild to intense, the tendency reactively is to do this. And of course, the discomfort increases. But that's actually true of all kinds of discomfort, not just physical discomfort or physical pain.

[36:06]

It's true with emotional and mental pain, which we have a tendency to clamp down on, with thoughts, with the kinds of reactions which are a registering of this. So the more I cultivate in my meditation practice, recognizing, oh, constricting, allow, allow what is so, begin to be in detail, not generally, but in specific detail, being interested and curious about what I'm experiencing, what I experience begins to change. And the habit of grabbing onto and constricting around is what leads to pain a significant amount of time.

[37:11]

And I don't think it's any accident that there is this continual kind of barking in the Buddhist tradition, no matter what the school is, that the realm of suffering is attraction and aversion. And we get caught, they're like two ends, but they're related. We get lost in what we're attracted to, and we get lost in aversion. And one of the manifestations of aversion is this. But it's also what happens with attraction. Oh, I love this. and I want more, and I want this to last. And this hurts, and I hate it. But it's this that's very characteristic of the untrained or conditioned habitual mindstream.

[38:14]

So to keep returning to this aligned settled, grounded posture and breath. This is the posture of being awake, being in attention. And my experience is that often when I see what is habitual, when I see my own conditioning manifesting in patterns, just the seeing alone leads to allowing and falling away. there's surprisingly little doing. And of course, this is the point at which having a teacher, having a spiritual guide to work with can be very helpful. Someone who's farther along on the path who can also say, oh, this particular conditioned patterning that you're telling me about that's coming up for you a lot might manifest, might

[39:23]

begin to soften if you pick your attention up and put it over here on such and such a wholesome quality. For example. I don't know if that flushes out what I'm talking about a little bit. I think particularly because in this country we have what would be called a mind culture. The emphasis is much more on thinking and thinking about and analyzing and describing and not so much a body culture. And so we can forget or not know how reliable the body is. The body doesn't lie.

[40:25]

It may take me a while to figure out what's the message here, but my experience is that the body is very reliable. As is the breath. Intimately related, but more subtle. Much more subtle. Kathy? This is really resonating from the idea In the last month and a half, I've been struggling with an experience that's about three years old at work, in which I was very caught, always have been in this case, of reacting, reacting, reacting. About a month and a half ago, something happened that was sort of tumultuous. And I began sitting more, and instead of reacting, just letting go, this is not a situation I It involves a person who's not going to change. But what I realized was that by reacting all the time, I wasn't even aware of what it was was so for me.

[41:36]

I had completely lost track and hadn't even asked myself, if this is this, what are What are you feeling? What are you thinking? And as soon as I made a little room, I was astonished. And I let go, and I did that. I went very far into what it was I saw for myself in that moment. And it was extremely helpful. And it continues to be on a daily basis. That other thing won't change. But this is, this is changing. Now beware of saying that other thing or that person's mind stream or the way that person is won't ever change. That's a projected view that is like freeze drawing that person. They may not change on your time frame.

[42:43]

you may not see evidence of change ever. But notice that energy about another person's mindstream and how that can become the distraction from what I can do something about, namely my own mindstream, if only that person would change. And what you're describing is that coming back to attending to what's arising in your mind stream, what is your experience, what's so for you. That we can do something about, especially if we're willing to be present with what's so for ourselves. It's painful being present, but it's been so fruitful. I think often our sense of some painfulness within ourselves is what fuels our getting very engaged with someone else's mind stream because it's a dynamite way to not tend to my own experience and particularly to avoid being present with my own suffering.

[44:03]

I think that happens a lot for many of us. And how great that you could actually come to that sense, that shift within yourself, because, you know, this is an instance of self-diagnosis, which is, from what I can see, in the end, the only diagnosis that we pay attention to. There was a little voice that kept saying, Sit. Just sit. That's great. Bill? I might describe a practice I've learned from Wendy Palmer. I don't think I've really told you about that you might comment on in this context. Given that I'm working with

[45:09]

I absorbed growing up in a family with an alcoholic father. The practice is to ask myself periodically through the day, am I anxious? Am I angry, frustrated, resentful? Am I sad? Those being three emotional locations that I visit. And then if I say yes, I am anxious to Examine where the anxiety is expressed in what I'm doing with my body Maybe frowning or clenching my shoulders and then to exaggerate that and then relax and let my energy settle, as much as I can, into the harmony.

[46:20]

And note the contrast between the constricted mode and the relaxed mode. And then at some point inquire of Mr. Belli Well, there are two comments I would make. One is the, am I, am I anxious? Oh, I am anxious, is the language that reinforces any tendency one may have for solidifying. So, That's one more caution than anything else.

[47:24]

And I know this sounds like an odd way of talking, either to oneself or to anybody else, but what do I notice arising in this moment? Do I notice some anxiousness arising? Do I notice some accompanying physical sensation arising? and to not be quite so quick to go to an alternative of relaxation, exaggeration and relaxation, but to allow at least a few moments of being as completely present with anxious arising as is possible. Yeah, those are both useful. modifications. Thank you. Even unmodified, I found working with that framework to be enormously informative.

[48:30]

Well, part of what I hear you describing is cultivating more attention with what's manifesting in the physical body. Particularly with sensation. Yeah. And what's manifesting in the physical body is going to be vastly more useful in my experience than our tendency to go to thinking about how I'm feeling. Thinking about what's up. You know, energy from the neck up. Brooke? I remember ages ago we had a big conversation about BNL boundaries and limits. Ah yes, BNL. So I've been put on my mind with this and This just feels like a very thick pattern that's been up. Like when I sit and practice, I can be with things.

[49:32]

I actually do know how to do that. The intuitive opening and understanding and welcoming. But as soon as something comes in at me from outside, like another human being or pressure, then it's very hard for me to maintain that capacity to work with that. So this feels like a jam. So that's come up in a big way at a new work opportunity that's opened up tons of opportunity, most of which I'm belligerently saying no to and taking some amount of it, which is lovely, but constantly feeling pulled to give more than And so people at work experience my limits, leading. And at the same time, so I've taken that feedback and I've recognized it, and that's true about my boundaries. So it's something about that, and also I think something in my own nature that I have to say no before I say yes.

[50:40]

And that's something about quality. kind of rebellion. I mean, I think there's another level of depth to that. And at the same time, I feel like if I don't protect my energy in some way, I get sick. You know, my body is so reactive, insomitizing, that I feel like I do have to protect. So I feel very awkward about this. Well, particularly if you're in this situation with people who you've worked with and who know you and have some idea of what they expect. If people are used to having you say yes and you're saying no, you're messing with their expectations. This is a newer group that I'm working with now, so they're just learning. Alright. This is one suggestion I would make because What jumped out for me in what you just said was, I have to say no before I can say yes.

[51:44]

It's a little vow in there. But for now, that's what's possible. So respect that. And when you're asked to do something, one possibility, if I put myself in your shoes, is to say, I'd like to think about it. And it may take me a little while to respond, but that's what fits for me right now. And to let yourself sit with, be as present with as possible, the habitual no, and just keep resting with that. This is where a number of us did the summer retreat last summer with Wendy Palmer. And she and I taught together. And we're going to do the February retreat together, for those of you who might be interested.

[52:50]

And in the centering practice that she teaches, what she calls basic practice, which is really a way, a fresh, contemporary, interesting way of restating what is there in Buddhist meditation about the cultivation of our capacity for presence. And she has this lovely way of saying, well, I need to make the breath a little more interesting because to me, breath is kind of boring. She says all these things that aren't, you know, professionally cricket in the Buddhist world. Breath is kind of boring. So she does this thing about visualizing the breath on the inhalation as a counterclockwise spiral up into the body and back into the earth in a clockwise spiral. Then attention to the alignment of the three energy centers, the physical experience of the three energy centers, head for perception, heart chakra for emotions,

[54:02]

para for strength and stability. I did that a little earlier in my talk, so thank you, Bill. He's Mr. Yvonne Unpack, what you just said. The physical experience of gravity, and in your case, what I would think would be crucial field, field to one side and the other, front, back, up, down. and then whatever quality one is wanting to focus and cultivate. Now my experience is that in any situation where I feel my uh-oh button go off, where there's some heat, if I set the field quite spaciously, my capacity to stay with what is historically hard to stay with increases like that.

[55:04]

to visualize a very spacious energy field within which one sits, maybe in your case with your colleagues in that work situation. And in that spacious field then there begins to be room for, I'm working with, learning how to take care of myself because when I don't, when I give up appropriate and flexible boundaries and limits, everything manifests in the body. I get overtired, stressed, I get sick. I know this about myself. I'm seeking to cultivate a more refined sense about boundaries and limits. Folks, that's what I'm doing. and I may be a little clumsy, I may say, no!

[56:07]

When that doesn't fit for me right now, might be sufficient. But I have to start where I can start. And my experience growing up in a family where I didn't see anything like boundaries and limits is, the process of that cultivation is slow, takes patience and has to be experiential, not thinking about it. I think that, I mean, we sort of, we're coming to that, because I actually made some statement like that. But I end up feeling very guilty, so there's a... It's just extra. Right, so I think you're right. And I do feel that, that I get so dressed around setting the limit that I can press and contract. So I think that's, I mean, I teach this to others all the time, but, you know, it's doing it, I mean, it's just remembering to physicalize it, and I think you're right just to sit with that, literally physically making more space and buying myself time so I'm not pressed to react in the moment.

[57:27]

Well, my experience with using Wendy's centering practice with these five details, these five aspects is in sitting meditation, every time any kind of reaction comes up, come back to center. And within a relatively few days, what took initially seven, eight, 10 seconds with those seemingly disparate factors became of a piece or possible kind of home base that took one or two seconds. And that the cultivation can happen without quite so much effort in the context of your meditation practice. And I think Wendy is really brilliant in her willingness to use herself and her own ongoing encountering with condition patterning as a way of articulating whatever is your version of what she's demonstrating.

[58:44]

And I think she's quite gifted at it. Yeah. Seema? I have a question about sitting with what is so. As you know, I've just this last year returned to regular sitting practice. And if something happened today, which sometimes happens, which is that I was sitting and I started to get anxious and panicky about sitting. Get up and walk. In here? Get up and go outside and walk. What I tried to do was to stay, what I started to do was to stay with the feeling of panic. I wasn't hurting, I wasn't uncomfortable. Not to do that, you say? I would never try to sit with panic and anxiety by sitting still. I'd get up and move. I just simply don't think it's skillful. Okay. Because what I did was I laid down and that calmed it, but then I'm not as awake in a lying down position.

[59:48]

Well, that partially has to do with getting yourself set up so you can lie down in a posture that is more conducive to being in attention, but also you weren't sitting up straight. You were sitting with a slight curve here. Yes, that's absolutely correct. So a kind of preliminary would be to keep lifting slightly here or at the top of the head so that you're in alignment and not doing, this is a more habitual kind of what I call the sack of potatoes, schlump, schlumping, which does constrict the breath. Okay, I find that sitting up this way puts more of a strain on my lower back, so that's why I've been, okay, nope. There's a whole cluster of things you're doing. This sitting straight may reveal the places in the body where one has habitual constricting.

[60:56]

And it's quite common to say, oh, sitting makes my back hurt. If you're sitting straight, I think it's much more likely that the sitting reveals places where there's habitual holding. And that's the discomfort. Yeah. I also think that having a certain amount of tone in the abdominal muscles makes a huge difference. So. That's the other variation on, in terms of details. Okay. Okay. Nice to see you all. It's not so warm outside, so if you want to eat lunch in here, you're welcome to, if you brought lunch. Otherwise, see you soon. Take care.

[61:54]

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