Freedom in Limitation

0:00 This podcast is offered by the San Francisco Zen Center on the web at sfzc.org. Our public programs are made possible by donations from people like you. Report an error in the passage at 0:00 Highlight the passage at 0:00

0:17 Good morning. Thank you, everyone, for coming today, for Report an error in the passage at 0:17 Highlight the passage at 0:17

0:35 all the effort that you made to get here to this cold barn, all Report an error in the passage at 0:35 Highlight the passage at 0:35

0:45 this effort to get here. And then if Report an error in the passage at 0:45 Highlight the passage at 0:45

0:51 you're like me, as soon as you get here, You think, maybe I shouldn't be here. Report an error in the passage at 0:51 Highlight the passage at 0:51

1:07 This isn't quite what I had in mind. Report an error in the passage at 1:07 Highlight the passage at 1:07

1:17 It's not working. Report an error in the passage at 1:17 Highlight the passage at 1:17

1:24 So of course our life goes on and on like this, trying Report an error in the passage at 1:24 Highlight the passage at 1:24

1:32 to get to the next thing, where something will be better, and Report an error in the passage at 1:32 Highlight the passage at 1:32

1:41 then getting there, and immediately trying to get out of it. Report an error in the passage at 1:41 Highlight the passage at 1:41

1:52 Of course, you know, there's also a big part of us that's so grateful to be here, feeling the intimacy and the opportunity, the possibility. Report an error in the passage at 1:52 Highlight the passage at 1:52

2:04 of coming back into our bodies and reconnecting with this feeling of being alive, feeling the intimacy of human beings together, the shared vow or purpose, Report an error in the passage at 2:04 Highlight the passage at 2:04

2:26 intimate and together with the light and the sound and all the living and non-living beings. Report an error in the passage at 2:26 Highlight the passage at 2:26

2:41 So we like to talk about, and I really like to talk about the good part, you know. But it's really valuable also to get a feeling for the part of yourself that really, as soon as you got here, didn't want to be here. Even if it was quiet, even if it's subtle, the part that finding ourselves in some new kind of limitation is kind of start scheming right away, how do I get out of the limitation that I'm in? Report an error in the passage at 2:41 Highlight the passage at 2:41

3:23 Wouldn't we want to just ignore that? Just shut that up and feel the gratitude and the intimacy and the connection. Report an error in the passage at 3:23 Highlight the passage at 3:23

3:36 Maybe so. Report an error in the passage at 3:36 Highlight the passage at 3:36

3:42 But for me, when I have that feeling, when I'm aware of that feeling of the trying to avoid where I find myself, even if I worked really hard to get there, I drove over that whole road. Report an error in the passage at 3:42 Highlight the passage at 3:42

4:00 And even if, you know, you just clicked on a link still, there's some effort that you made. Report an error in the passage at 4:00 Highlight the passage at 4:00

4:12 So basically the part that's never satisfied, the part that's always trying to get free, I feel like when I get a nice glimpse of it, I have this feeling like, oh, you've been pushing me around, and I'm actually happy to see you. Might seem like a drag to see that part, but I'm kind of happy to see you, and that's what our, sometimes, what our Zen practice or our sitting practice is like. Report an error in the passage at 4:12 Highlight the passage at 4:12

4:44 It's like, oh, I thought I was going to feel the bliss and spaciousness and joy and ease, but all I'm seeing is this part. Subtle or loud, it just wants something else to be happening. It starts with all these great ideas, you know, about stuff that could be happening. But even just anything other than what's happening. Report an error in the passage at 4:44 Highlight the passage at 4:44

5:13 So here at Green Gulch, some of us are involved just starting in a nine-week practice period, letting Report an error in the passage at 5:13 Highlight the passage at 5:13

5:31 the turn to fall support us, you know, to quiet down and touch into some roots. Report an error in the passage at 5:31 Highlight the passage at 5:31

5:42 To sit together and study and work together. So we'll be following a kind of rigid schedule of formals and practice. And so I wanted to say a little bit about that and how we understand that in terms of our practice of liberation. Is Report an error in the passage at 5:42 Highlight the passage at 5:42

6:12 Kika here? Kika! This practice period, our head student or head priest is Kika, who many of you know as having been the Ino here for a long time. So this is a wonderful opportunity for her, as she saw, to help to lead the practice period and to kind of start her path as a Zen teacher. Report an error in the passage at 6:12 Highlight the passage at 6:12

6:42 So our theme for the practice period is the way of Suzuki Roshi, our San Francisco Zen Center founder. So we're taking up and practicing with his Report an error in the passage at 6:42 Highlight the passage at 6:42

7:00 teachings of coming into our body. Report an error in the passage at 7:00 Highlight the passage at 7:00

7:06 Finding our upright posture, caring for the details of our posture so Report an error in the passage at 7:06 Highlight the passage at 7:06

7:22 that we can feel the flow of our breath, coming Report an error in the passage at 7:22 Highlight the passage at 7:22

7:31 back and staying close to that feeling of the flow of our breath, sometimes letting it fall deep into our belly, all the way out and all the way in, and Report an error in the passage at 7:31 Highlight the passage at 7:31

7:53 then with that ground of embodied presence to let the things that are in the mind fall away if they can, to empty our mind. Report an error in the passage at 7:53 Highlight the passage at 7:53

8:07 So that everything else can fill it up, the light and the sound and each other. Just cleaning the house a little for these marvelous guests of light and sound and sensation. Report an error in the passage at 8:07 Highlight the passage at 8:07

8:24 So to empty our mind and then with warm heart, warm heart to feel that intimacy when we're in our body and when the mind is not so cluttered, everything is included. Report an error in the passage at 8:24 Highlight the passage at 8:24

8:43 As he says, everything is included. In our being alive, to open to that intimacy, to kind of, in a way he sometimes put it, become one, become one with our surroundings, which already aren't separate. It's not like a heroic effort. It's just what's already happening. We just settle and clear our mind and feel this intimacy with everything that's here that's giving us life. Report an error in the passage at 8:43 Highlight the passage at 8:43

9:30 This teaching, you know, that in our actual being alive, in your actual being alive right now, there's this incredible spaciousness. Suzuki Roshi talks about big mind. big mind, the big self that includes everything. Report an error in the passage at 9:30 Highlight the passage at 9:30

9:56 And so we get excited about that and we want that. We want to keep that and we get frustrated to lose that. Give me more spaciousness. Report an error in the passage at 9:56 Highlight the passage at 9:56

10:15 Get me out of this little, limited, constricted. Report an error in the passage at 10:15 Highlight the passage at 10:15

10:26 Spacious, free, one with everything. Report an error in the passage at 10:26 Highlight the passage at 10:26

10:33 For me, in my own path of coming to practice, this was a fundamental theme, you know. I think that maybe early on, as I started to turn to spiritual practice, I got some sort of taste or feeling of a kind of vastness that our life is. Report an error in the passage at 10:33 Highlight the passage at 10:33

10:56 And so naturally I thought, I want that and I don't want the other thing. I had this little, constricted, limited life, and then sometimes I would feel the sort of vastness of being, so naturally I wanted to get away from the little thing and be the big thing. Report an error in the passage at 10:56 Highlight the passage at 10:56

11:26 And that didn't go so well, it turns out. Do any of you know what I mean? It got pretty bad. There was, you know, not Report an error in the passage at 11:26 Highlight the passage at 11:26

11:51 much of me left down here Report an error in the passage at 11:51 Highlight the passage at 11:51

11:57 such a solid way to live as a human being. Report an error in the passage at 11:57 Highlight the passage at 11:57

12:13 life as this kind of tight, small, constricted, limited place. And we imagine that these two are sort of fighting with each other, and we want to get free of the small so that we can enter the large. Report an error in the passage at 12:13 Highlight the passage at 12:13

12:33 So we come to the temple, for example, for practice period, as some people just did, maybe searching for this big mind that they had read about. And the first thing that happens is that they're shown a seat in this room and said, stay here today, all day. Report an error in the passage at 12:33 Highlight the passage at 12:33

12:59 We'll see you tonight. You can take a little break for a meal. You have to go to the bathroom. Fine. You came for something really big, here's something really small. As our friend Nicole was saying the other week, three-foot mat. Report an error in the passage at 12:59 Highlight the passage at 12:59

13:27 So coming for something big and then being given something small. What Report an error in the passage at 13:27 Highlight the passage at 13:27

13:47 moved me so deeply coming into Zen practice is this possibility Report an error in the passage at 13:47 Highlight the passage at 13:47

13:57 and practice that that vastness is found right in my fully being in The smallness, you know. So what is that vast freedom? What is big mind? And we say it's put your left thumb in your left fist and cover with your right palm. Report an error in the passage at 13:57 Highlight the passage at 13:57

14:21 It's hold the teacup with both hands. Sweep the leaves. Be exactly in the small room in the limited conditions in which you find yourself now. And notice and appreciate that what that actually is Report an error in the passage at 14:21 Highlight the passage at 14:21

14:41 is vast and ungraspable and intimate and bottomless. Report an error in the passage at 14:41 Highlight the passage at 14:41

14:52 If you go try to find the vast thing, you're going to get very confused. It's right here in the left thumb, in the left fist, in how you hold the teacup. Report an error in the passage at 14:52 Highlight the passage at 14:52

15:10 So there's a chapter I wanted to share that is sort of dedicated to those folks struggling in the practice period, having made such a great effort to be here and already wondering. Report an error in the passage at 15:10 Highlight the passage at 15:10

15:20 How to get out of it when it's going to be over. Managed to take leave from my job and figure out my family and day two. Report an error in the passage at 15:20 Highlight the passage at 15:20

15:32 I wanted the big thing and I got the small thing. Report an error in the passage at 15:32 Highlight the passage at 15:32

15:44 I wanted to be free and they put me in this room. I can't even go for a walk. Report an error in the passage at 15:44 Highlight the passage at 15:44

15:56 I was walking up the day after that tongario period so that tongario refers to the small room Traditionally, in a temple, you go sit in for a while, kind of indefinitely. When you arrive at a temple seeking vastness, you're put in a small room indefinitely. And that's our life, you know. That's where our life is. So we celebrate that ceremony here in the meditation hall. Report an error in the passage at 15:56 Highlight the passage at 15:56

16:52 So Suzuki Roshi really is into this finding ourself by... Entering the gate of the limitation that we find ourselves in. It's one of the important themes in his teaching. And so I wanted to share this chapter from Becoming Yourself that is called Finding Yourself, or it could be Finding Yourself in Limitation. Report an error in the passage at 16:52 Highlight the passage at 16:52

17:27 Walking up after Tongario, in the parking lot here, one of our residents has a van with a license plate that maybe you've seen that says, live free or die on it. Report an error in the passage at 17:27 Highlight the passage at 17:27

17:44 That is so intense. Live free or die. I thought, so this is like this fundamental value. This being free is this like deep value that we have worth dying for, you know. And so then seeking that freedom, these people have willingly kind of relinquished their freedom to just sit on a tiny mat and not even go for a walk on a beautiful day at Gringo. Report an error in the passage at 17:44 Highlight the passage at 17:44

18:18 What are they thinking? They could be free. Report an error in the passage at 18:18 Highlight the passage at 18:18

18:27 And what do the people think who drive those vehicles? That to be expressing that freedom is like this most important value, but it can't be that people feel that freedom in their life, especially when you're driving, you know? When I'm driving, that's like my least, it's not like live free, that's my most, you know, you're trying to get somewhere, you're probably late, the kids' times don't line up. Report an error in the passage at 18:27 Highlight the passage at 18:27

18:55 Or you're at work, you know, driving. Report an error in the passage at 18:55 Highlight the passage at 18:55

19:00 How do we have this value of freedom? And then how do we bear that actually our life is completely confined and limited? We're not free. Of course, there's great range in the relative freedom that we have in terms of control over our environment or ability to move freely. Report an error in the passage at 19:00 Highlight the passage at 19:00

19:23 And yet, as one of the Saṅgha members in San Quentin Saṅgha so deeply and And powerfully and directly expressed to me, yeah, there's a huge range of what that is in our relative life, and yet fundamentally, we are all in a condition of limitation. Report an error in the passage at 19:23 Highlight the passage at 19:23

19:49 To think that freedom is this vital value, and so then we need to surpass the fundamental limitation of our life, is a recipe for total confusion. How are we going to get out of the limitation? Report an error in the passage at 19:49 Highlight the passage at 19:49

20:04 So I'm actively distressed by this license plate. And I thought, can you opt out of this license plate? And I actually googled that. Maybe you know, you can't. There was a Supreme Court case. Somebody thought that was too much. It's so intense to have on my car. Do I have to have this on my car? I'm not free. I'm in the limitation. So you don't have to. Report an error in the passage at 20:04 Highlight the passage at 20:04

20:35 You can cover that up, apparently. As of 1977. Report an error in the passage at 20:35 Highlight the passage at 20:35

20:44 But still, you know, whether we cover it up or not, we have this wish, we have this wish that I think is maybe especially American, but also it's innate. We want to be free. We intuit that our being is not limited, is not confined, is vast, is oceanic, is spacious, is one, you know, and then we read these teachings that affirm that, and then we come back into our little life, and then there's this kind of tension. Report an error in the passage at 20:44 Highlight the passage at 20:44

21:15 Then I wondered, you know, what is California plates? Do you know? Have you noticed? You'd have a car in California? It's a URL for the DMV. Report an error in the passage at 21:15 Highlight the passage at 21:15

21:28 DMV.ca.gov or something literally is the thing. I lived in the land of enchantment, in the land of Lincoln, and now it's a URL. Report an error in the passage at 21:28 Highlight the passage at 21:28

21:41 I guess that expresses something. I don't know why. Report an error in the passage at 21:41 Highlight the passage at 21:41

21:50 To let ourselves, I think the inspiration of that is to let ourselves, you know, externally, may all beings be free. And also internally, may I be clear about what freedom is, you know. And even as I work to liberate myself from the confining conditions that should be, that I should be released from. Report an error in the passage at 21:50 Highlight the passage at 21:50

22:11 And even as we work to help others to be released from confining conditions that they should be released from, can we not be confused? Fundamentally about the existential limitation we're in. And notice our constant chafing against that, the constant resistance we have to our little life. Report an error in the passage at 22:11 Highlight the passage at 22:11

22:31 There's a kind of wise idea of freedom and a foolish idea of freedom. And we get those confused and think that there's wisdom in our foolish idea of freedom. Which is like, I shouldn't have to be limited. Report an error in the passage at 22:31 Highlight the passage at 22:31

22:49 So Suzuki Roshi says, Nanyo Echu was a famous teacher and a very good Zen master. He was one of the disciples of the sixth ancestor of Zen in China. He didn't have many descendants, so we don't know much about him. When Nanyo was dying, the emperor asked what kind of tombstone they should make for him. Report an error in the passage at 22:49 Highlight the passage at 22:49

23:13 And Nanyo told the emperor's messenger, ask my disciples. So before a tombstone was made for him, the disciples had a discussion about it. Report an error in the passage at 23:13 Highlight the passage at 23:13

23:23 One of the students said, it should be as big as this country. Report an error in the passage at 23:23 Highlight the passage at 23:23

23:32 The tombstone should cover the whole realm south of Shou and north of Tan, all of China. Another student said, no, it should cover the whole world. Our teacher's realization of big mind, he was so big that the only tombstone that would be appropriate would be one that covers the whole earth. Report an error in the passage at 23:32 Highlight the passage at 23:32

23:56 He was free of limitation. Report an error in the passage at 23:56 Highlight the passage at 23:56

24:01 But I would rather say, says Suzuki Roshi, just as their teacher, Nanyo, He said when he was asked, any stone will be good enough. Even a small stone is good enough for me. Report an error in the passage at 24:01 Highlight the passage at 24:01

24:22 Which do you like? The whole world or a small stone? Report an error in the passage at 24:22 Highlight the passage at 24:22

24:31 Wonderful question that he's giving us. What about you? What do you want? Do you want the whole vast free oceanic world or do you want the small stone of your limited life? All the things that are constricting you. you know when Report an error in the passage at 24:31 Highlight the passage at 24:31

25:02 we misunderstand this fundamental sort of existential zen view of freedom then everything that's actually giving us life we think is blocking our life all of these people and circumstances that are keeping us from doing the thing we want and being with the people we want to be with those circumstances are actually what's giving us our life The delusion turns the thing that's giving us our life into the thing that we imagine is blocking us from our life, and then we start treating it that way. Report an error in the passage at 25:02 Highlight the passage at 25:02

25:41 So Nanyo said, I prefer a small stone that we can carry or move. If you know what a small stone is, you know that it is you yourself, and that it covers everything. Report an error in the passage at 25:41 Highlight the passage at 25:41

25:58 But if you think that you need to see the entire universe in order to see yourself, you will be lost. Report an error in the passage at 25:58 Highlight the passage at 25:58

26:08 You need one small room for yourself. That is very true. When you can really find yourself in a small room, then there is you yourself, and the whole universe is there, and the whole universe makes sense to you. Report an error in the passage at 26:08 Highlight the passage at 26:08

26:26 Without your one small room, the whole universe doesn't make any sense. So what you need now is a small room, and what you will need after your death is a small stone. Report an error in the passage at 26:26 Highlight the passage at 26:26

26:37 That is the actual reality, which is always true for everyone. Always true for everyone. Report an error in the passage at 26:37 Highlight the passage at 26:37

26:49 If we didn't have the limitations, we Report an error in the passage at 26:49 Highlight the passage at 26:49

26:58 would not be here. Our body, our being is dependently arisen. Everything in the universe makes our life and in a way that it constricts our life. Report an error in the passage at 26:58 Highlight the passage at 26:58

27:14 Without it, we have no life. To imagine being free of it is imagining not being. Report an error in the passage at 27:14 Highlight the passage at 27:14

27:26 And you could say, maybe, that that's the early Buddhist approach. But it's not the way in the Mahāyāna. Report an error in the passage at 27:26 Highlight the passage at 27:26

27:37 Naturally, I work and strive to be free of limitations, but to not be fooled. Report an error in the passage at 27:37 Highlight the passage at 27:37

28:00 One of the ways that I like to talk about this that some of you have heard is through this old Chinese image, Hawaiian Buddhist image of the golden lion, where the Buddhist teacher is instructing the empress on some of the principles of Buddhism using the example. example of a golden statue of a lion. Report an error in the passage at 28:00 Highlight the passage at 28:00

28:24 The Report an error in the passage at 28:24 Highlight the passage at 28:24

28:29 shape of the lion is not like constricting or obstructing the view of the gold, that nature of being, that freedom or spaciousness or oneness of our actual life. The shape isn't like blocking us from that. The shape is what's manifesting that. Does that make sense? Our life is like this. So we're looking at the lion and trying to see the gold and saying, maybe if it was not a lion, I'd be able to see the gold, you know. Report an error in the passage at 28:29 Highlight the passage at 28:29

29:12 We're trying to find our self, our big self, our true self that includes everything. And we're saying, well, if my situation were different right now, then I could be seeing that. Report an error in the passage at 29:12 Highlight the passage at 29:12

29:26 The shape of my life right now, rather than being actually the way that the gold of my big mind is showing up, becomes this thing that I think is blocking me from seeing the big mind. Report an error in the passage at 29:26 Highlight the passage at 29:26

29:42 So entering the formal Zen practice, part of what we're training in is just quieting down the impulse to be always trying to manipulate our environment in order to feel better. Report an error in the passage at 29:42 Highlight the passage at 29:42

30:00 Whether it's that we're sitting for 20 minutes with some kind of intention or commitment not to move even if we want to, or whether it's we're giving ourselves to this full early morning to night, schedule of kind of knowing where we're supposed to be and what we're supposed to be doing every moment of the day Report an error in the passage at 30:00 Highlight the passage at 30:00

30:22 I think of it, it's a terrible image, but I do think of it this way as we have a kind of like dashboard. Isn't that a terrible idea about our life? So we're at the dashboard with these kind of switches and dials, you know, and we're trying to adjust them all the time because it's not quite right. It's a little too hot, it's a little too cold. Report an error in the passage at 30:22 Highlight the passage at 30:22

30:46 What's the shape of my life? Does that make sense? We're trying to manipulate all of these external conditions all the time to get our well-being and our comfort and our ease and our freedom and our spaciousness, right? Just trying to have a little less of that, a little more of this. Trying to manipulate our external circumstances and that's very natural and appropriate. That's the activity of our human life. Report an error in the passage at 30:46 Highlight the passage at 30:46

31:13 But there's these other, on the dashboard there's these little dials at the bottom. There's a couple of them, you know, like, how is your heart? Dial. And how is your posture? How are you meeting your life? Rather than what's in your life? What's your schedule? What are you going to be doing? Who are you going to be with? We're so in that that we kind of like forget these little dials down here that are like, how is your heart? Report an error in the passage at 31:13 Highlight the passage at 31:13

31:39 How are you taking care of? How are you welcoming each moment, whatever it is? So in a way, in Zen, you know, we kind of like put, Formal Zen practice, we put masking tape over all the dials that are external. We don't like saw them off. Put masking tape on them for a while so that we can try to see, okay, I'm miserable. Report an error in the passage at 31:39 Highlight the passage at 31:39

32:06 Oh wait, I can't do the dials, there's tape on them. What am I going to do? I can't just sit here miserable. Oh wait, there's these other dials. Report an error in the passage at 32:06 Highlight the passage at 32:06

32:16 How's my heart welcoming this miserable situation, this achy body? This confinement, this being with who I don't want to be with, not being with who I want to be with, not feeling how I want to be feeling, feeling how I don't want to be feeling, not doing what I want to be doing, doing what I don't want to be doing. Report an error in the passage at 32:16 Highlight the passage at 32:16

32:34 How is my heart? How is my body? How is this capacity to welcome and be with and even see the gold in the life itself, the wonder, the depth? When we let go of our views, I like it, I don't like it, it's big, it's small, as Suzuki Roshi says in this chapter, then we actually can touch and remember and appreciate our Report an error in the passage at 32:34 Highlight the passage at 32:34

33:06 actual self, our actual life, that anything is happening. So we're trying to give a little energy to these little dials down here just so we get the hang of that they're in the picture too. Report an error in the passage at 33:06 Highlight the passage at 33:06

33:19 And then we come back into the full, you know. Panel. It's not like never touch those external ones again. But know that that's not, sometimes they don't work, you know. There will come a time when they don't work in your life. Report an error in the passage at 33:19 Highlight the passage at 33:19

33:45 So we practice kind of giving ourselves into limitation to study how can I work with things not going my way? How can I work with my suffering in a kind of inner way to give balance to my habit of always trying to Report an error in the passage at 33:45 Highlight the passage at 33:45

34:06 Solve my problem externally. How do I get out of this room? Report an error in the passage at 34:06 Highlight the passage at 34:06

34:19 So I don't talk about the whole universe or some mysterious experience, but Report an error in the passage at 34:19 Highlight the passage at 34:19

34:29 just about finding yourself in a small room or in the strict practice of formal Zen where we say you should cross your legs in just this way. Report an error in the passage at 34:29 Highlight the passage at 34:29

34:40 Under this kind of limitation, you will find yourself. Your real self is there. Report an error in the passage at 34:40 Highlight the passage at 34:40

34:54 Because you discuss whether this room is good or bad, big or small, you lose your real room. Before you discuss and before you are caught by discrimination or thinking mind, it is your own real room. Report an error in the passage at 34:54 Highlight the passage at 34:54

35:09 So this kind of softening of our view of what's happening to grow the ground of our being Report an error in the passage at 35:09 Highlight the passage at 35:09

35:22 with the life itself, that's what's happening. Report an error in the passage at 35:22 Highlight the passage at 35:22

35:32 So to find true joy under some limitation, is the way to realize the whole universe. There is no other way for us to get an approach to the whole universe. Report an error in the passage at 35:32 Highlight the passage at 35:32

35:46 to find joy under our limitation. Report an error in the passage at 35:46 Highlight the passage at 35:46

35:55 When you exist right here, the whole universe makes sense to you before you think about it. Report an error in the passage at 35:55 Highlight the passage at 35:55

36:04 It is important to give up your foolish discrimination or foolish ideas of freedom. This is the way of practice. Report an error in the passage at 36:04 Highlight the passage at 36:04

· · · silence, 1 minute

36:46 So our faith and our teaching and our experience Report an error in the passage at 36:46 Highlight the passage at 36:46

36:56 Finding ourself, finding our actual life. You can try this at home. You can do this moment after moment. Notice that you are uncomfortable and trying to get free and appreciate that. Feel what that feels like and remember that there's also an opportunity to find yourself right in that discomfort, right in that limitation. Report an error in the passage at 36:56 Highlight the passage at 36:56

37:26 And that that doesn't mean you're going to be stuck there, you know. It's like, but if I just find myself, if I'm just open to being in the limitation, then I'll never get out of it, you know. How will I, you know, do the right thing to get free when it's time to get free? Report an error in the passage at 37:26 Highlight the passage at 37:26

37:43 Our teaching is that this way of finding ourself right in the actual circumstances of our life, no matter if we think it's good or bad, is actually the ground of how we're going to be able to then act in a way that helps the situation be better and more spacious and more free. For ourselves and each other. This is bodhisattva practice. This is practice for all of us who have a deep innate wish and vow to be of benefit to others. Report an error in the passage at 37:43 Highlight the passage at 37:43

38:14 Do you have any question or comment about that? Is that clear and actionable? Report an error in the passage at 38:14 Highlight the passage at 38:14

38:26 Don't go looking for something big. Notice what this small thing actually is. And you can't get a handle on it. You can't grasp it. Because it's vast. It's bigger than... Report an error in the passage at 38:26 Highlight the passage at 38:26

38:42 Thank you for listening to this podcast offered by the San Francisco Zen Center. Our programs are made possible by the donations we receive. Please help us to continue to realize and actualize the practice of giving by offering your financial support. For more information, visit sfzc.org and click Giving. Report an error in the passage at 38:42 Highlight the passage at 38:42

39:14 May we fully enjoy the Dharma. Report an error in the passage at 39:14 Highlight the passage at 39:14