One Hiss and I Lost What I Know

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

0:21 This is my first time giving a talk at Green Gulch. Yeah, so it's always fun to come to a new place and the forms are a little different. At Tassajara and City Center we only chant the opening chant once instead of... Three times, so perfect opportunity to not get stuck in habits, right? And I want to thank the Tanto Timo-san for the invitation, and my old friend Cam, Reverend Zenju Osho. Report an error in the passage at 0:21 Highlight the passage at 0:21

0:57 Good to see you. Some people that I have known for a while here. And welcome to everyone who I don't know, and perhaps we'll get to know each other a little better. For the favorite part of the whole thing, right, the tea and cookies. Report an error in the passage at 0:57 Highlight the passage at 0:57

1:22 To those of you online, there's a camera right in front of me. So I just returned about two months ago. I left Tassajara Zen Mountain Center where I had been living this time around for 27 months. So I have come and gone quite a bit at Tassajara since I first quit my job in 2008. 2008 and went to Tassajara. Report an error in the passage at 1:22 Highlight the passage at 1:22

1:53 So I was just there for these 27 months and I left on December 18th, so it's almost been exactly two months. And of course people have been asking me, you know, do you miss it? And I would say yes and no, right? There's many ways that it's difficult or challenging to live in that kind of environment. Report an error in the passage at 1:53 Highlight the passage at 1:53

2:13 And for those of you who've never been to Tassajara, it's a beautiful mountain valley. Just about an hour outside of Carmel, or 45 minutes outside of Carmel Valley Village over this steep, windy, unpaved, mountainous road that occasionally washes out and gets too muddy to drive over or too icy. I think what I miss most is, of course, the quiet. And at Tassajara, there's this wonderful creek that goes by. Report an error in the passage at 2:13 Highlight the passage at 2:13

2:42 It's almost always running. I think I've only seen a few summers where it's gotten down to... Report an error in the passage at 2:42 Highlight the passage at 2:42

3:03 I'm at city center, that river is a river of noise, right? Dogs barking, people yelling, sirens, wayward car alarms. So it's been, you know, taking a little bit to get used to living in the city. Report an error in the passage at 3:03 Highlight the passage at 3:03

3:18 And what I find really transformative about Tassajara, practicing at Tassajara for as long as I have, is there's so many opportunities, a lot of them unexpected, to study the self, right? So we're here staring at the wall, practicing seated meditation to become more intimate with what's going on with ourselves, right? Report an error in the passage at 3:18 Highlight the passage at 3:18

3:41 Our psycho-emotional, physical landscape, if you will, right? We're taking that backward step. As some of you might have heard, that phrase that Ehe Dogen uses, to look at ourselves, to investigate thoroughly, which is also a phrase that he really likes to use as well. So we're studying this person that I call Heather, right? That's my responsibility. And at Tassajara, like I said, there's a lot of opportunities to study this one. Report an error in the passage at 3:41 Highlight the passage at 3:41

4:09 Not only when I'm sitting on the cushion for all the meditation that we do there, but also just being immersed. In this natural environment, and I think that transformative aspect of being in nature for so long, and before these last two years or so, I've lived there before for about seven years, is that you start to feel a little more elemental, not so solid, not so separate from the creek and the trees and the birds and the flowers and the people that you meet on the path, whether they're there for guest season or they're your Dharma friends, occasionally your dharma frenemies, but you are immersed in this natural setting. And I have yet, maybe you all can come up with a new word with me, but that word environment is like your surroundings. Report an error in the passage at 4:09 Highlight the passage at 4:09

5:04 And I don't know, when I feel like I'm surrounded, that's like a defensive posture, right? So I don't like that word because it means surroundings, environs. So I want a word that is more that I feel integrated in nature rather than surrounded by it. I'm a part of nature. And I think that that's what happens in our very modern, very busy society is we don't have an opportunity to feel elemental. Report an error in the passage at 5:04 Highlight the passage at 5:04

5:31 And maybe some of you who live out sort of in the wilderness, and I'm from the Bronx, so this is wilderness, that we don't get to feel Those elements, right? The air, water, the heat of our bodies, how are just these bodies? And it's interesting, when I'm at Tassajara, I have a much higher tolerance for cold. And I remember one time when I left, I went to New York to help out at the Brooklyn Zen Center. Report an error in the passage at 5:31 Highlight the passage at 5:31

6:04 It was a massive snowstorm that they haven't had in a long time. And I was all bundled up with my boots and my down jacket. But at Tassajara, when it's like 25 degrees, I'm walking around in my robes. And I don't know where that superpower comes from, but there's some way that my body is regulating itself. Obviously, I know being out in those kinds of conditions, out on the mountaintop, would be life-threatening. Report an error in the passage at 6:04 Highlight the passage at 6:04

6:29 But just walking through the valley, feeling like I'm part of, because I am, we are, not separate from what's going on, and somehow our body regulates itself. Also, when you stay for a year or two, you're in rhythm with the seasons, right? You feel the seasons inside of you, right? You feel these seasons. We all have our own internal seasons. Report an error in the passage at 6:29 Highlight the passage at 6:29

6:52 Like for me, the summer, I get really irascible when it's hot. Just saying. And for those of you who survived my irascibility at Tassajara, maybe Cam a little bit, and Kika was there as well, I don't like hot weather. So there's a part of me that comes out in really hot weather that maybe isn't always so friendly. It just wants to... Report an error in the passage at 6:52 Highlight the passage at 6:52

7:11 get cold and stay in the creek and feel comfortable right where we like comfort so these opportunities to study my opportunity to study myself is everywhere at Tassajara not only and obviously in the interactions with my fellow community members but also with the natural environment and one of those occasions was when i went and hiked the tony trail which if you've been to Tassajara it's one of the steepest trails And on my way down, I was feeling really kind of proud, because I'm a little bit of a, as my spouse likes to say, she calls me a seal. I just kind of like to lie around. Report an error in the passage at 7:11 Highlight the passage at 7:11

7:48 So I was feeling really proud that I had gone up the Tony Trail and down, and I was making my way through this knee-high grass, kind of reed-like grass. And then all at once, or I don't know, in such rapid succession it felt all at once, there was what? The rattle, hiss, coil of death. So I say I, but it didn't feel like I. Report an error in the passage at 7:48 Highlight the passage at 7:48

8:17 I just rattle, hiss, coil. I didn't really see the rattlesnake. And I just heard it first. And then this body just jumped as far away as possible. And then I could see it over there, coil that was very thick and dark brown. And I was like, whoa. And it was still hissing at me. So immediately what happens, right, is I did this, like, there was this, I guess I would say, an automatic body scan. Report an error in the passage at 8:17 Highlight the passage at 8:17

8:46 All of a sudden, you know, I felt my thumping of my heart was still going, all this adrenaline rush. And, you know, if you've ever been in a situation like that, your senses really come online and you're just searching your surroundings. And I'm in the high grass. I'm still looking for another rattlesnake. And so I was going back to the creek. Report an error in the passage at 8:46 Highlight the passage at 8:46

9:07 There's parts of the creek that have maybe less of this tall grass for a rattlesnake to hide in, but there's also a lot of poison oak, which I have never gotten living there, and I didn't want to get. But for me, I just went through what may have been poison oak because I knew that rattlesnakes don't go in the water, and I was trying to perhaps escape the rattlesnake or the rattlesnake's friend or if there was another rattlesnake. Report an error in the passage at 9:07 Highlight the passage at 9:07

9:34 So I just went into the creek. Through maybe what was poison oak and just went across and then went back to the main grounds of Tassajara. It was a day off. So I just got my picnic lunch and I went to the lower garden and everything just seemed so vibrant, right? Because there was just this experience of, whoa. Report an error in the passage at 9:34 Highlight the passage at 9:34

9:56 So I sat there in the lower garden and I just marveled at how incredibly beautiful the Mexican sage is. It's just, I love purple. One day this will be purple. Report an error in the passage at 9:56 Highlight the passage at 9:56

10:08 I just love purple and so there was this gorgeous Mexican sage there and I just ate my lunch and I just was really grateful for being I mean I know it's rare that somebody gets bitten by a rattlesnake I think it's only happened once in like 50 years at in the vicinity of Tassajara so it's not something that happens a lot. Report an error in the passage at 10:08 Highlight the passage at 10:08

10:32 So later that evening Of course, it's a great war story. There's lots of war stories at Tassajara. But later in that evening, I was reflecting on this event where I jumped completely out of the way to get away from this rattlesnake. And it reminded me of some of those stories that I would hear, these awakening stories that I heard when I first started practicing Zen in Austin, Texas, back in 2001 or so, where the teacher hit somebody with a kotsu or a whisk. Report an error in the passage at 10:32 Highlight the passage at 10:32

11:07 Or they hear a sound and all of a sudden they're awakening. They had great Kensho and they're a completely different person. So one of those first stories that I heard was about this teacher Kyokun Chikan. And he lived in the 900s, the Tang Dynasty in China. And he taught on Fragrant Mountain and had, they say he had over 1,000 monastic disciples. Report an error in the passage at 11:07 Highlight the passage at 11:07

11:33 But although he was a very skilled scholar, He had all these volumes of the sutras that he would study. He had not yet realized enlightenment. And one day his teacher offers him this koan. Koan is one of those paradoxical anecdotes that confound our logical mind. What was your original face before you were born? Report an error in the passage at 11:33 Highlight the passage at 11:33

12:00 I've also heard it. What was your original face before your parents were born? So, of course, Being the scholar that he is, he rushes to his books to see where the answer is. He's looking for the answer, not trusting this, looking for knowledge in his intellect. Report an error in the passage at 12:00 Highlight the passage at 12:00

12:20 Because he's not able to find the answer, he burns all of his books, and he decides he leaves his teacher, and he decides to go traveling. And he builds, of course, a grass hut, and Report an error in the passage at 12:20 Highlight the passage at 12:20

12:37 he plants bamboo to keep him company. And one day, right, he's sweeping, right, one of those daily activities that we do quite a bit at all three temples of San Francisco Zen Center, and a piece of tile, I'm not sure where the tile came from in the middle of where he was, but maybe it was a pebble, pebble, tile, it hits a bamboo stalk. Report an error in the passage at 12:37 Highlight the passage at 12:37

13:00 And he had this experience, he had this Kensho, this dropping of body and mind, this great awakening, they call it. And he composed this verse of understanding, right? So if you've ever read koans or studied koans with a teacher, the person would often, the student after realizing or the master would write a verse of their understanding of that koan. Report an error in the passage at 13:00 Highlight the passage at 13:00

13:25 So here's his understanding of the koan about what was your original face before your parents were born. So Chi Khan writes this. One hit. and I lost what I know. I won't be training myself again. Action and repose given over to the old path. I won't be sinking into worry. No traces wherever I go. Deportment beyond sound and sight. Report an error in the passage at 13:25 Highlight the passage at 13:25

14:01 Masters of the Way in All Directions. Masters of the Way in All Directions will call this the highest So after this unexpected event, He no longer needed to train himself by cultivating his intellect. And he had already burned all of his books. Because he knew the thick weeds of these concepts obscured his original face. Report an error in the passage at 14:01 Highlight the passage at 14:01

14:26 They covered the old path, the old path of the original face. Buddha nature is another way that we often refer to this mystery of life. Report an error in the passage at 14:26 Highlight the passage at 14:26

14:38 And so in the middle of this everyday activity, and as for those of you who Come to these temples often and maybe have your own practice of meditation. Part of this tradition is bringing that zazen mind, the cultivation of concentration, mindfulness, stability of body, stability of mind to our everyday activities. Report an error in the passage at 14:38 Highlight the passage at 14:38

15:03 And so perhaps because he was so focused, this undivided activity of sweeping, when the tile struck the bamboo, he had this awakening. Report an error in the passage at 15:03 Highlight the passage at 15:03

15:14 Realizing that his thinking mind, all the words and phrases in all of his books and all of his thoughts were not going to give him the answer to that koan. Report an error in the passage at 15:14 Highlight the passage at 15:14

15:27 But because we're so identified with thinking mind, and for those of you who have been meditating for a while, or maybe those of you who have just started, maybe this is part of the inquiry that's come up for you, right? Is, well, who is the one that is thinking? What are thoughts? When I first started practicing Zen all those years ago, A, I never thought I'd be here. I just wanted relief from suffering. And no one ever said anything to me that I wasn't my thoughts, I wasn't my emotions. Report an error in the passage at 15:27 Highlight the passage at 15:27

15:56 I was raised very Catholic. Well, my father was very Catholic. I was just raised Catholic, but I never really resonated with that religion. Report an error in the passage at 15:56 Highlight the passage at 15:56

16:07 So this is a process, again, of studying ourselves, right? Studying ourselves to see what is this one? What is this one? Report an error in the passage at 16:07 Highlight the passage at 16:07

16:15 But because we get so identified with our thinking mind and when we're meditating, we can see some of that, right? If our body and mind slows down still, we can start to notice some of these thoughts that might be arising, notice what is going on in the body too. Report an error in the passage at 16:15 Highlight the passage at 16:15

16:35 And for me, with this situation with the rattlesnake, I think part of the inquiry that came up for me was, well, it didn't seem like there was a lot of thoughts. When I heard the rattle and the hiss and the coil, I just moved out of the way. There was this instinctual response or reaction. And so the question was, well, who's perceiving? Who is perceiving when it doesn't feel like there's a Heather there perceiving what's going on, or there's not these volitional mental formations? Report an error in the passage at 16:35 Highlight the passage at 16:35

17:11 So these volitional mental formations did not seem to arise from the time that That sound was heard, those sounds were heard, and I jumped out of the way. So one of our five sense organs makes contact with a corresponding sense object. In its sense field, we have what we call contact, sensory contact. So in this case, the sound of the rattlesnake, this raspy hiss, I heard it, and because there's hearing consciousness, that's the sense field, there was a reaction. Report an error in the passage at 17:11 Highlight the passage at 17:11

17:49 So these volitional formations or samskara is one way. Maybe some of you have heard of that. It's the fourth aggregate out of this paradigm of five aggregates that the Buddha put forth as one of his main teachings of how to understand and how to study this body, this body-mind. And I'm going to talk a little bit about each one of those. So these mental formations include Psycho-emotional, so this is the fourth aggregate, but I didn't talk about them in order, so just heads up for you linear people. So mental formations include psycho-emotional processes, if you will. Report an error in the passage at 17:49 Highlight the passage at 17:49

18:33 I mean, we would call them nowadays emotions like joy, anger, confusion, concentration, equanimity, and in this case, fear. And these are all dynamic, right? They're processes. They're impermanent. And they're also impersonal. And if you know the three marks of existence, there is suffering, this dukkha, this dissatisfaction. Report an error in the passage at 18:33 Highlight the passage at 18:33

18:58 When we cling on what's arising and make it into a me, we take things personally. That's one way that we can feel we can suffer. And then they're also impermanent. So the rattlesnake, fortunately the rattlesnake didn't follow me around everywhere hissing and coiling. So this was a momentary... Sensory experience, right? So it's impermanent. And then also there's this other characteristic of conditioned phenomena, which is everything in this room, except for space, but that's another talk. Report an error in the passage at 18:58 Highlight the passage at 18:58

19:31 And that is that there's this not self-characteristic. So whatever's arising in our sense doors is not who we are. It's just passing phenomena. Report an error in the passage at 19:31 Highlight the passage at 19:31

19:46 So the trunk of a banana tree is a simile that the Buddha uses to talk about mental formations, to talk about formations. And there's three types of formations. Report an error in the passage at 19:46 Highlight the passage at 19:46

19:57 There's bodily formations, right? So body, we chant that body, speech, and mind, right? So there's a bodily form, volitional formations, verbal speaking, and then also thoughts or these psycho-emotional processes. Report an error in the passage at 19:57 Highlight the passage at 19:57

20:15 That are also part of this aggregate of formations. So what we perceive with our eyes, right, our sense organs of our eyes, we see this banana tree, and we think, oh, that looks pretty solid. And I remember once when I was living in Louisiana, because I never saw a banana tree in New York, and we were taking care of this property, and my partner at the time was taught how to prune it or trim it. Report an error in the passage at 20:15 Highlight the passage at 20:15

20:41 I didn't realize that it was just all these curled large banana leaves and that's how it grows. The whole trunk are just banana leaves and that's how it unfurls. So if you were to cut the banana tree and start looking for the center, you wouldn't see. There would be no solid, there's no solid banana tree at the center like we perceive it to be. Report an error in the passage at 20:41 Highlight the passage at 20:41

21:03 So it's a misperception to think that the tree is solid. Just like... It's a misperception to think that we're all solid, and that all this form is solid. And now that we are in some ways very advanced, in other ways we're obviously not very advanced, but we have all this scientific knowledge to prove this, that everything is in motion all the time. Report an error in the passage at 21:03 Highlight the passage at 21:03

21:30 We just don't perceive it in motion. So if we were to unpack the banana tree, There's no own being, is another word you might have heard. There's no own being, there's no solid, independent, permanent existence of a banana tree. Report an error in the passage at 21:30 Highlight the passage at 21:30

21:49 So this, what we perceive as solid, this form, right, this is the first aggregate. And the Buddha uses this simile, a lump of foam, right, to describe form. And when you're living at Tassajara, or anywhere in the natural environment here, you have those ponds down there. Where you see a puddle and there's a little bubble on top. So we get to, I know you're going to say, Heather, this is obvious, but really there's something about intellectually understanding impermanence, intellectually understanding, oh yeah, I'm a lump of foam or there's no center. Report an error in the passage at 21:49 Highlight the passage at 21:49

22:22 And then when you're feeling more elemental, or some people would say feral, atasahara, if you're there too long, you can feel the insubstantiality of this body-mind. You can look at that bubble on the creek. And be like, oh wow, yeah, a lump of foam. These aggregates are not solid. So this lump of foam, this form is the first aggregate. Report an error in the passage at 22:22 Highlight the passage at 22:22

22:48 And in this particular instance, the lump of foam that I call Heather met the lump of foam that we would call a rattlesnake. Of course, a rattlesnake doesn't have a name for me. At least I don't think it does. And then also... I'm sure the rattlesnake probably experienced me as threatening as well, which is why I coiled. That's a defensive posture of a rattlesnake. Report an error in the passage at 22:48 Highlight the passage at 22:48

23:14 And even though they don't have any ears, they do have, they take in sensory vibrations through their body and their tongue, is what I read about. Report an error in the passage at 23:14 Highlight the passage at 23:14

23:25 So the sensory contact with the raspy sound of the rattlesnake's hiss and the rattling leads me to the second aggregate, right, these feeling tones. Now maybe in Zen we don't talk about the feeling tones in the same way that like a Theravadan teacher would or a meditator or Vipassanā. But these feeling tones are not emotions, they're just physical sensations. Report an error in the passage at 23:25 Highlight the passage at 23:25

23:49 And they're either pleasant, right? I love ice cream, potato chips, right? So it's easier to stay away from ice cream at Tassajara. Not so much potato chips because they don't melt like ice cream does. So there's this pleasurable aspect, right, to our human existence. So there's a feeling tone that arises of pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral. Report an error in the passage at 23:49 Highlight the passage at 23:49

24:14 We don't even notice. So in this instance, quite unpleasant, right? Hearing the rattle, the hiss, the coil was very unpleasant, and I took it as life-threatening. Report an error in the passage at 24:14 Highlight the passage at 24:14

24:27 So this process, so the other aggregate that comes up here is this conceiving or naming or noticing. This is the third aggregate, the process of conceiving. So this is when a sense object, in this case the rattlesnake's sound, is brought into our consciousness. Now, had I not heard the rattlesnake, I would have just walked along and that was it. There would have been no contact with the rattlesnake sound. Report an error in the passage at 24:27 Highlight the passage at 24:27

24:59 And what I find really curious and mysterious in a way, I mean I know it's not super mysterious because... We've tried to investigate everything and have scientific proof about everything, but it was a little mysterious at the time. I mean, I was so shocked and frightened, I put shocked hyphen frightened, when I heard the hiss that there wasn't any labeling of rattlesnake in the grass. Report an error in the passage at 24:59 Highlight the passage at 24:59

25:23 There was just, right, just an immediate reaction, an appropriate response, which is threatening animal, I can die. Boom. Again, that didn't even show up. But I remember, though, when I was jumping out of the way, I had this image, because I've seen lots of movies, or even if I haven't seen them, but this image of a rattlesnake pouncing and just sticking fangs into my calf or my ankle. Report an error in the passage at 25:23 Highlight the passage at 25:23

25:54 So the Buddha used a simile of a shimmering mirage to describe our perceptions of form, sounds, odors, tastes, tactile, and mental phenomena. So for the mind, So for the mind consciousness, for mind consciousness, the object of minds are these thoughts. But also the objects that come in through all of our sense doors are processed through mind consciousness. Report an error in the passage at 25:54 Highlight the passage at 25:54

26:21 So when a sound arises, the mind is right there making associations. These mental formations shows up, images, emotions show up, and then I have an experience. Report an error in the passage at 26:21 Highlight the passage at 26:21

26:34 A very filtered experience of what's going on based on karmic conditioning. So consciousness is the fifth aggregate, and it's the basis of all the other four aggregates, right? Report an error in the passage at 26:34 Highlight the passage at 26:34

26:48 And the Buddha used a simile of a magical illusion in referring to these six types of consciousness. So like I said, we have the ear consciousness, eye consciousness, nose, tongue, body, and mind consciousness. So every sense organ has a consciousness associated with it. That's how we're able to hear, right, the sense field. And I want to just mention that, yeah, I want to mention that consciousness is not an entity. Report an error in the passage at 26:48 Highlight the passage at 26:48

27:19 It's a process. It's always in flux, right? It's never static. It's a function. It's a function. It's not an entity, right? There's nothing static about consciousness. It's always changing. Report an error in the passage at 27:19 Highlight the passage at 27:19

27:37 And of course, it's impermanent consciousness, and it also is impersonal. Now, because as human animals, you know, one of our most prominent senses is our eyes, right? So we are usually visual animals, and I know I want to remind everybody that we are animals. I know I don't always, definitely much more in touch with being an animal when I'm freezing or too hot at Tassajara, a complaining animal if it's too hot. Report an error in the passage at 27:37 Highlight the passage at 27:37

28:09 But just say that I had seen this rattlesnake first. And then I would have been like, oh, there's that rattlesnake. But wait a second. I thought I read in Wikipedia that this type of rattlesnake is not nearly as aggressive as the rattlesnakes in Texas where I used to live. So it's probably just coiling to defend itself. And it's not going to strike. So I should be OK. But maybe I should jump out of the way anyway. That may not happen when we come face to face with an animal that Can kill us. But we do that a lot when we see people we don't like, right? Right? All this cogitation, all these stories can be created, right? Report an error in the passage at 28:09 Highlight the passage at 28:09

28:49 This story. So had I seen that rattlesnake, maybe, A, I don't think I would have actually jumped as far as I could because I'm not really much of a jumper, right? So if I had said, okay, I need to jump as far as possible, maybe I wouldn't have jumped out of the way and it would have been able to strike me. Maybe I wouldn't have gotten that far. Report an error in the passage at 28:49 Highlight the passage at 28:49

29:10 Because I'm not conditioned to jump far, right? But because if you say, you know, in a way, you know, there's this thicket of mental formations, I'm trying to figure something out and that is causing me to hesitate, right? So in this case, I feel really grateful that I didn't see the snake. I probably would have even been more scared and maybe I would have turned around and gone back up the Tony Trail and just waited. Report an error in the passage at 29:10 Highlight the passage at 29:10

29:37 Until I thought it was gone, I don't know. You can get kind of panicky when we overly think, right? So these five aggregates are what we usually call ourselves me, right? Our psycho-emotional and physical, our psycho-emotional personality and the physicality of our bodies, right? This lump of foam that sometimes I perceive as solid. Report an error in the passage at 29:37 Highlight the passage at 29:37

30:03 Although I think the older I get, the less solid it feels. The more in control it feels, or the less in control I feel of this body, and the less solid it feels. So these five aggregates, this me, this lump of foam, and all these aggregates, another way to phrase it is also that this is the only way for us to experience life, is through this pile of aggregates. Report an error in the passage at 30:03 Highlight the passage at 30:03

30:32 This is the conduit by which we experience our life. And for most of us, these aggregates work the same. What's different, depending on if we can hear, if we can see, if we can taste, we can smell, we can touch, if we have those consciousnesses, is our karma. Our karma is different. And our thoughts, which while we're sitting zazen, we're letting go of the thoughts, we're practicing being bodies, becoming really intimate with what's going on here, which does include our thoughts. Report an error in the passage at 30:32 Highlight the passage at 30:32

31:07 I feel like thoughts, some of them we don't really need to investigate. However, others can really reveal our karma because they are karma. They are karmic formations. So we can learn about ourselves for sure, like what stories arise when we're in certain situations, especially if it's a recurring situation or it's a recurring narrative. Report an error in the passage at 31:07 Highlight the passage at 31:07

31:27 It can be helpful to kind of unpack that, to inquire about that with a teacher, with a therapist, with a good friend. And you can explore some of those stories. It's just that when we reify those stories and say, this is who I am, I am a person who can't jump. And associations, you remember, Heather, how you stunk on the basketball team in high school, which is true, because I can't jump, and I really can't dribble, right? Report an error in the passage at 31:27 Highlight the passage at 31:27

31:51 So, of course, I didn't think about that. If I had seen the rattlesnake, I would have said, Heather, remember, you can't really jump. Remember, you were on the basketball team in high school, and you can't really jump, so you're not really going to jump really far, so, okay. So we get, we have associations based on our karma. Or our karma is associations, these filters that arise. Report an error in the passage at 31:51 Highlight the passage at 31:51

32:12 And so these five aggregates, as some of you might know, sometimes they're referred to in the sutras as the five aggregates of clinging. But I want to let everyone know that they don't inherently cling. They don't inherently cling. Which means... Report an error in the passage at 32:12 Highlight the passage at 32:12

32:34 They're like this. They're like an open hand, if you will, right? There's five aggregates, five fingers. So when we're not making the sound, sights, sensations, formations, when we're not making these sense objects, including thoughts and emotions, into a me, our hand can stay open, and we don't react so much, right? Report an error in the passage at 32:34 Highlight the passage at 32:34

32:54 So I like to use this example of a fist. So when we cling, right? To those aggregates, when we say, oh, here's all these aggregates. Heather can't jump. She's going to die. She sucked on the basketball team. All these ways in which I have ideas about my body and mind, this me. When that's really tight, then I experience myself as separate from what's going on in the environment. Then maybe I do feel really surrounded by the environment instead of part of the environment. Report an error in the passage at 32:54 Highlight the passage at 32:54

33:29 I don't feel like the elements out there are the elements in here. So this fist, I call it this fist of self, and then this is where suffering, this is suffering. And I have this acronym that helps me sometimes, which is this fist of self. Suffering, ego, limits our freedom. Or separate ego limits our freedom. The sense of a separate, independent, abiding Heather, this permanent Heather. Report an error in the passage at 33:29 Highlight the passage at 33:29

34:00 And of course, if we have our fist. Close. There's a lot of energy that takes to keeping your fist closed, right? There's a lot of energy that we can use inefficiently to keep those stories going, right? Stories about ourselves, story about life, story about the people you love, story about the people you can't stand. Those are the juiciest ones, right? Report an error in the passage at 34:00 Highlight the passage at 34:00

34:20 So we have to watch when are those aggregates clinging? When is there this aspect of consciousness that makes us feel separate, right? Makes us feel separate from... The people makes us feel separate from the environment, which is really the only way when we feel separate that we can actually bring ourselves to harm other people and also destroy the earth, which we're very good at. Report an error in the passage at 34:20 Highlight the passage at 34:20

34:49 So when we're able to experience ourselves more like a fluid, if you will, less permanent, more fluid, this can kind of sort of help with The not becoming, right? Not reifying that old Heather who was on the basketball team and couldn't jump, which isn't really a big story of mine actually at all. But because I was jumping away from Rattlesnake, I thought I would bring it up. Oh yeah, that's right. I was not much of a jumper. So yeah, so there's a way that we reify. Report an error in the passage at 34:49 Highlight the passage at 34:49

35:23 We make concrete these stories of ourselves, right? When we have these aggregates, when they're clinging, those stories maybe are clinging, especially the ones that... The more Report an error in the passage at 35:23 Highlight the passage at 35:23

35:39 I take things personally, which we all do when we're in traffic. Unless we're the ones in the rush cutting people off, that's okay. But when someone does that to us, we can get very annoyed by it, right? And so to use this phrase that I like that Dogen talks about, the less that we feel ourselves are separate. Report an error in the passage at 35:39 Highlight the passage at 35:39

36:22 And he says, life must be the rattlesnake and life must be Heather. I mean, there's not, the rattlesnake's living its life, Heather's living its life. We have this encounter in this moment. The rattlesnake is part of me. I'm part of it. We're both perceiving each other and everything else that's going on in this particular moment. Report an error in the passage at 36:22 Highlight the passage at 36:22

36:41 And if I had had a previous experience with rattlesnakes, maybe it would have even been worse. Maybe I wouldn't even go hiking because I'd be like, oh my god, there's going to be a rattlesnake. So there's this book that I highly recommend. It's called The Heart Attack Sūtra by Karl Brunholtz. And I guess the legend is that when the Heart Sūtra was first given as a teaching, many people, if not all of them, had heart attacks because it was so radical. Report an error in the passage at 36:41 Highlight the passage at 36:41

37:12 And we chant the Heart Sūtra, as you know, every day at the three temples of San Francisco Zen Center. So he, again, it's a really brilliant book. And he talks about the processes of the five aggregates in this way. Not only is our perceiving mind, and I'm pointing here, but we know the mind's not really here. So not only is our perceiving mind dynamic, changing moment to moment, but so are the objects that it's perceiving. Report an error in the passage at 37:12 Highlight the passage at 37:12

37:40 So it's not like, this is solid, it's not moving. No, this is changing as well. I'm not able to perceive it as changing. Phenomena, everything is phenomena, cannot be defined by themselves. The rattlesnake doesn't exist outside of Heather. This doesn't exist outside of Heather. This collection of people is this particular collection of people. Report an error in the passage at 37:40 Highlight the passage at 37:40

38:01 We're not existing outside of each other. We are interdependent. We're perceiving each other. Rather, we can only talk about them as, it's kind of a long phrase here, complexes of mutual relationships. So this complex of mutual relationships. Complex of mutual relationships, complex of mutual relationships with other phenomena, right? Other phenomena is also complexes of mutual relationships with other complexes of mutual relationships. Report an error in the passage at 38:01 Highlight the passage at 38:01

38:35 And perhaps he phrased it all this way to help us not try to grasp onto it, like the complex of mutual relationships. Everything is always relating, right? It's not a relationship. You could say maybe a relationship-ing. It's not consciousness. Maybe it's a consciousness-ing. We can change our language a little bit, not when we're around English teachers, of course, but to reflect the fluidity, the flux of this karmic being right here and all of you as well. Report an error in the passage at 38:35 Highlight the passage at 38:35

39:09 So had I taken this situation with the rattlesnake personally, mental formations could be something like this. I can't believe that sneaky rattlesnake hid itself in the grass waiting for me to return from my triumphant hike up the Tony Trail and scare me to death. It's such an evil creature, right? Serpents we know are evil. Such an evil creature and it deserves to die for making me feel so vulnerable and so frightened. Report an error in the passage at 39:09 Highlight the passage at 39:09

39:36 I'm going to come back with a few Bodhisattvas and teach it a lesson, right? Now it's funny because we know rattlesnakes, they're not like, I'm just going to sit here and wait for Heather. Or any other unsuspecting hiker. They're not operating that way. So this is kind of ludicrous. But we do this a lot. On everything, everybody, all the time. Report an error in the passage at 39:36 Highlight the passage at 39:36

39:58 All this, what the Buddha would call, papancha. This mental proliferation, mental elaboration. Where the rattlesnake's just being a rattlesnake. Heather's just being Heather. Whatever that is, whoever I am. And that's it. Without taking this sense object. of a rattlesnake personally. It's so much easier, although I'm sure there's people out there who would take the rattlesnake's actions personally. Report an error in the passage at 39:58 Highlight the passage at 39:58

40:25 It's so much harder to do that when we're interacting with other human animals. When we impute on them a solidity, a reification, I like to call it like we make people into statues. But if I'm making someone into a statue, then I make myself into a statue. And then it's just like, I know who that person is. They're going to be this way. Report an error in the passage at 40:25 Highlight the passage at 40:25

40:45 And I think we can see that writ large, right, in our society, how polarized it's become. So before, this was my first encounter at Tassajara with a rattlesnake that was coiled and threatening me. Me, threatening me, damn it. But I have seen rattlesnakes like on the path when they're just chilling out, getting some sun, but I've never seen one coiled and hissing and rattling at this lump of foam. Report an error in the passage at 40:45 Highlight the passage at 40:45

41:18 Since that was my first experience, it does leave this sense impression, which is also one way to look at these samskara, these formations, like a proclivity in our body-mind that can get reinforced. So say every single time I went out, I saw a rattlesnake and it scared the bejesus out of me, every single time. Well, then I would have this story. Report an error in the passage at 41:18 Highlight the passage at 41:18

41:45 In my body as well, right? This trauma of always being scared by a rattlesnake. I'm always going to meet a rattlesnake. And I'm sure that we know that stories for ourselves, right? We keep reinforcing, making real these stories. That sense impression would be reinforced. So it's another transformative aspect of meditation, especially when you live in saṅgha and maybe somebody who a few days ago you didn't get along with, now all of a sudden you're sick and they're... Report an error in the passage at 41:45 Highlight the passage at 41:45

42:14 Showering you with kindness and you're like why don't you just be mean to me because I don't like you and now you're being kind to me so you're shaking up my story of you but that's great and when we're in community all the time and we cycle through all these roles some of which we're not so great at we get to just be with the people and ourselves in different roles and we get to see this fluidity of the person and it takes a lot of effort to keep our fists closed. Report an error in the passage at 42:14 Highlight the passage at 42:14

42:44 Keep our hearts closed when we're in continuous saṅgha and we see people over and over again. We see all aspects of them. We don't make them into the statue. So fortunately for the rattlesnake, it can't ruminate. Probably after our chance encounter, I'm sure it didn't write a dharma talk, but probably felt, like I said, threatened, and probably just slithered off into the grass, found the rodent, ate it, and then just... Report an error in the passage at 42:44 Highlight the passage at 42:44

43:16 That was its verse of understanding, just going back to being a rattlesnake. Well, it was never not a rattlesnake. So here's my verse of understanding. understanding. One hiss and I lost what I know, no more deceiving myself. The ancient path unearthed, shining forth beneath my feet, jumping like a stone woman, landing on the wild reeds. Report an error in the passage at 43:16 Highlight the passage at 43:16

43:43 Swaying in the wind of no mind. Thank you very much. Thank you for listening to this podcast offered by the San Francisco Zen Center. Our Dharma talks are offered at no cost and this is made possible by the donations we receive. Your financial support helps us to continue to offer the Dharma. For more information, visit sfzc.org and click giving. May we fully enjoy the Dharma. Report an error in the passage at 43:43 Highlight the passage at 43:43