Turning the Light Around to Illuminate the Light
Given by Tenzen David Zimmerman at City Center on July 25th, 2026 Central Abbot Tenzen David Zimmerman offers three analogies related to light as supportive practices for zazen, noting that in Zen, light serves as a powerful analogy for awareness.
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- 3:57
The flashlight of awareness or the attentional flashlight. And I often like to use this particular analogy whenever I offer meditation instructions for the first time to newer students. So after offering kind of general posture suggestions for how to kind of sit upright, be in the body, and then I offer this analogy of flashlights to help them understand how they can cultivate an attentive, attentive, quiet, and calm mind.
- 17:48
So echo hensho, it originated in early China, and it embodies the unity of calming the mind, shamatha, and gaining insight, vipassanā, by shifting the focus from external objects to the nature of awareness itself. To the nature of the light itself, you could say. So in Japanese, as an echo, means to turn back. And ko means light. And hensho, in hen, is to return, and sho is to illuminate.
- 24:20
So in other words, by turning the light of awareness inward to study our sense of self, and this is the study, what is this sense of a separate self? There's actually two selves that he's talking about here. First, we're studying the sense of a separate self. You know, our egoic self, you will. And then we also are studying the big self, as Sukhiroshi would call it, the boundless self, the Buddhist self, right?
- 32:04
So now, in many ways, the light of the awareness, I like to think of acts as a kind of alkahest. You know what an alkahest is? So the term alkahest comes from the ancient practice and language of alchemy. Anyone practice alchemy here? Oh, okay. And so...
- 50:42
And all matter and experience is nothing more than this manifestation of Buddha lights. And the invitation of Zazen in practice is to simply rest in that light and allow who you truly are to be revealed and to shine. So when you're sitting Zazen, you're just sitting there as this lamp, this infinite boundless lamp of luminosity. That's all you have to do. There's nothing else to do in Zazen.
Transcript
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
0:16 Good morning, everyone. It's lovely to see all of you, your bright faces on this sunny day. And welcome to Beginner's Mind Temple. Report an error in the passage at 0:16
0:29 For those of you who may not know me, my name is Tenzen David Zimmerman, and I'm one of the resident priests here, among other things. And whether you're here in person, here online, here at some other point in time and space, welcome again. Report an error in the passage at 0:29
0:49 So a number of us here today are participating in a day-long sitting. We're going from... Basically, 5.30 in the morning until 6 o 'clock tonight, sitting together in silence and stillness as much as possible and enjoying just being. That's what zazen is. It's not doing anything special. It's just being. Being with your being. Being totally with the experience of being. It's very simple, but we're not so good at that sometimes. Report an error in the passage at 0:49
1:21 So, given that it's a day-long sitting, I thought I would... You know, share some thoughts on the practice of meditation and zazen. And I want to do this by offering three analogies related to light for us to reflect on and maybe for those who are sitting today take up the practice. And so in Zen, light serves as a powerful analogy for awareness. Report an error in the passage at 1:21
1:53 And it symbolizes this kind of just the clarity, understanding, illumination, the ability to perceive things as it is without any kind of distortion. So no darkness gets in the way to obscure. Everything is clearly illuminated. eliminated. And this constant Concepts, you know, of awareness and illumination illuminates everything that comes into our field of experience, including our thoughts and our feelings, our emotions. Report an error in the passage at 1:53
2:24 And in the process, it helps us to see how things truly are, really zoning in on what is real, what is true in this moment. And once we can see clearly how are things, Not our ideas about how things are, but really how things are, then we can find skillful, compassionate ways to engage with things and work with them directly. Report an error in the passage at 2:24
2:56 Sojin Mel Weitzman said that Zazen brings forth in us a steady light that isn't subject to the ups and downs of grasping and aversion, of craving and excitement. The light illuminates our direction. so that we know which way to take. we know which way to take the next step. So the first Report an error in the passage at 2:56
3:53 light-based analogy I'm going to call The flashlight of awareness or the attentional flashlight. And I often like to use this particular analogy whenever I offer meditation instructions for the first time to newer students. So after offering kind of general posture suggestions for how to kind of sit upright, be in the body, and then I offer this analogy of flashlights to help them understand how they can cultivate an attentive, attentive, quiet, and calm mind. Report an error in the passage at 3:53
4:28 So the practice entails managing your ordinary consciousness, your day-to-day awareness as a flashlight or a spotlight, and whose being can be directed or adjusted, either narrowed or widened at will, any way that you feel necessary. And so... Report an error in the passage at 4:28
4:54 Most of the time we have this tendency to use our flashlight of awareness and we're kind of shining externally. We're looking out into the world, illuminating objects that are out there in some way. And so wherever the light points, we naturally look in that direction and we kind of put our focus on, in many cases, external objects and experiences rather than what's going on in our internal world. Report an error in the passage at 4:54
5:22 I like particularly to use this analogy of directional flashlight to introduce two core meditation practices. Those are shamatha and vipassanā. Anyone hear of those before? A few people, right? So even if you haven't heard of them before, if you've been doing some meditation, you might naturally have been introduced to them or found yourself engaging with them in some way. Report an error in the passage at 5:22
5:49 So For the sake of the synology, the meditation practice of shamatha, or calm abiding, is how it's often translated into English, entails focusing your beam of light or your awareness narrowly onto a particular object of choice. So you narrow the aperture of the flashlight onto, for example, the breath. That's a very common... Report an error in the passage at 5:49
6:15 common object or touchstone that we suggest people first focus on, the breath or you can Report an error in the passage at 6:15
6:42 The idea is to hold that flashlight, the light, concentrated on that particular object for as long as steadily as possible. Now, of course, you notice probably that's not so easy to do, that quickly the mind wants to wander and go off to other places. other objects, other things, and get distracted. And when you notice it, you notice that awareness has wandered in some way, you simply bring it back without judgment, redirecting the flashlight back onto the object of your meditation. Report an error in the passage at 6:42
7:19 So the objective. of this particular practice over time is to build a steady, unwavering, one-focused, one-pointed focus. So we're turning the scattered, dim light of the wandering mind into a focused, unwavering beam, the constancy of the light, never wavering, just always consistent, always focused. Report an error in the passage at 7:19
7:52 And in the process, this practice, what it does is it cultivates a certain degree of patience, it reduces reactivity, and it kind of offers a relief from our chattering mind. So again, gathering the light in the mind and focusing on one particular object as long as possible. Now, you might find over a period of time that you're getting... Report an error in the passage at 7:52
8:19 Pretty, I don't know if this is a word I want to use, pretty good at having a consistent, you know, shining the light of awareness consistently on a particular object, such as the breath, right? And you can continue that for a period of time. So you might decide that you want to widen the aperture. Rather than focus on one object, maybe widen the aperture to maybe the experience of the breath throughout the entire body. Report an error in the passage at 8:19
8:46 So a wider field. Sometimes some meditations say start focusing on the breath right at your nostrils or here in your chest. But what is it to widen the aperture to become aware of the breath throughout the whole body? Or even wider, become aware of the breath in the room. So widening that field, widening the aperture. Once again, trying to keep it as steady as possible as you widen it. Report an error in the passage at 8:46
9:11 And... Report an error in the passage at 9:11
9:15 What happens over time is we continue expanding this aperture. And as we do, the narrow focus begins to soften and open. So instead of aiming awareness like a beam of a flashlight into our object and keeping it there, what we're beginning to do is discovering that we can actually open this aperture as widely as possible. Report an error in the passage at 9:15
9:42 Until everything can be received in kind of this wide open spotlight of awareness. So rather than one focused concentration, there's this wide field. Everything is illuminated that comes into your field of awareness. So that includes external sounds, senses, the whole field of experience. Whatever arises in this illuminated space is perceived. Report an error in the passage at 9:42
10:10 Within its own field of light. And sometimes this particular approach, this wide aperture, is called panoramic awareness. So you can have flashlight pinpointed awareness, or you can have panoramic awareness. The objective, again, is to can you widen the aperture and make sure that as it gets wider, the light is still somewhat steady. Report an error in the passage at 10:10
10:35 It's not fluctuating a lot or jumping all over the place, but it's wide, expansive, and also steady in some way. And again, if it starts to get shaky and wavy, you can just narrow the aperture once more, focus it. Make it just a single beam of light. Focus on a single object until you can reestablish some steadfastness in how the light of awareness is directed. Report an error in the passage at 10:35
11:04 And then again expand over time. And as we kind of open, we practice opening consistently the aperture, we begin to maybe feel a little bit more calm. Everything can be received with a sense of ease, with a sense of curiosity. Kind of a clarity of mind and there's also a greater sense of connectedness because we're connected to everything that comes into our field of awareness in some way. Report an error in the passage at 11:04
11:32 And sometimes this whole, the aperture itself falls away. So there's no longer this framing of an aperture. That falls away and what we're left with is this wide open sky. This luminous, spacious, boundless field like. Report an error in the passage at 11:32
11:52 sky itself, right? And anything, you know, anything that comes into the sky is simply received, welcomed. It's not, you know, discriminated against. Everything is welcome. You know, clouds, thunderstorms, birds, airplanes, comets, rainbows, everything is welcomed in this wide open, boundless sky. And this kind This kind of... of open space, this sky-like mind, we can call choiceless awareness because you're not choosing to focus on any particular object. Report an error in the passage at 11:52
12:29 You're just keeping everything open. And this is essentially the practice of Shikantaza. We talk about Zazen just sitting, and Shikantaza is this wide open aperture, boundless actually, without order, any parameter. So choiceless awareness is Shikantaza. And furthermore, this luminous spacious awareness, if you begin to study it, you realize that it's not only kind of externally, but it's also internally. Report an error in the passage at 12:29
13:05 It's everywhere. The spacious awareness is both inside and outside simultaneously, and it has no boundary, no separation. Report an error in the passage at 13:05
13:18 And it can't be produced. It's automatically naturally there. And you realize that everything that appears in it, that the spacious awareness is the very medium in which everything appears. And I would also suggest everything is made of the same medium. So you realize in time that this light is the luminous ground that has always been here. It's always been present. It's always available to us. Report an error in the passage at 13:18
13:45 And many Buddhist traditions describe this as the nature of mind itself. Our natural nature of mind is this boundless, luminous, spaciousness, skylight quality, in which everything, that quality of mind is always awake. It's always aware and it's always free. There's nothing that fundamentally hinders it or bounds it in any way. Report an error in the passage at 13:45
14:12 Now, if shamatha or calm abiding is the degree of the steadiness or the constancy by which the light of awareness attends to or shines on a particular object, then the companion practice of vipassanā, which means clear seeing, you could say is the clarity and the brightness of the light itself. itself. How bright and how clear is the light? And so Vipassanā involves using the light of awareness to observe and investigate. Report an error in the passage at 14:12
14:43 So once you study the mind, then you begin to observe and investigate the changing field of experience itself. So as thoughts, feelings, sensations arise, we try to observe them with as much clarity as possible and bring a a little little curiosity. curiosity to them. Shamatha again focuses the mind, calms the mind, helps us develop concentration so that we can use that concentrated mind to go into the nature of experience itself and say, what is this? Report an error in the passage at 14:43
15:13 What is this experience made of? What is the nature of this? So vipassanā represents the natural function of the stilled mind to illuminate reality. reality and uh... Report an error in the passage at 15:13
15:31 You could say that the light of awareness naturally reveals objects and phenomenon just the way they are, just as they are. And this insight that we have as we study the nature of experience, we begin to see that all experience is impermanent, all experience is dependently co-arisen, and there is no self, no inherent separate self in any experience, no object that you can pull out. Report an error in the passage at 15:31
16:02 So vipassanā helps us to see into the nature of all experience, to see what it really is. Now, whereas some Buddhist traditions kind of treat the practices of shamatha and vipassanā as two distinct practices, and, you know, they can be at times taught. First you do shamatha, steady the mind, you know, get the flashlight, focus on the object, and then you can graduate to vipassanā, right? Report an error in the passage at 16:02
16:28 But actually in Zen, we kind of, they come together. We don't really make that separation. And zazen is often described as the perfect union or the simultaneous development of samatha and vipassanas. Excuse me. And the stillness of the body and the mind, the shamatha aspect, provides the clarity through which direct experience of vipassanā into the nature of reality can occur. Report an error in the passage at 16:28
17:02 You can hear me okay? I'm not too croaky? Report an error in the passage at 17:02
17:11 Suzuki Roshi loved frogs. That's why we have a frog in the steps. So I feel like I'm channeling a frog today, if I'm sorry, on behalf of Suzuki Roshi. Report an error in the passage at 17:11
17:23 Okay, so there's another important formulation of the union of shamata and vipassanā in the Japanese Zen tradition, perhaps a little more poetic one. It's known as echo hensho. you. Thank you. Thank you. Report an error in the passage at 17:23
17:38 Anyone know that term, echo hensho? A couple people, yeah. And this echo hensho also relies on the analogy of light. So echo hensho, it originated in early China, and it embodies the unity of calming the mind, shamatha, and gaining insight, vipassanā, by shifting the focus from external objects to the nature of awareness itself. Report an error in the passage at 17:38
18:06 To the nature of the light itself, you could say. So in Japanese, as an echo, means to turn back. And ko means light. And hensho, in hen, is to return, and sho is to illuminate. So echo hensho, to put it together, literally means turn the light around and shining back. Turn the light around and shining back. Report an error in the passage at 18:06
18:35 So the practice of agrahensho is central to Zen's approach to awakening because it recognizes, addresses the root of our delusion. And we have this habit of identifying with the objects of consciousness rather than recognizing and abiding our natural awareness in light itself. So we identify with the objects that the light illuminates. Report an error in the passage at 18:35
19:01 Rather than actually identifying with the light itself, at some point they say, well, let go of identification altogether. But most of the time we identify with our thoughts, our feelings, our body sensations, that's me, me, me, objects that are being illuminated, rather than actually what is it that is aware of thoughts, feelings, and body sensations. Report an error in the passage at 19:01
19:23 How do I turn the light around and examine that? So Shohako Gomura, who is a well-known Zen teacher, he describes Ekohensho as turning the light around and returning the illumination. It's not just shining back, but returning the illumination. And he compares it to kind of the evening twilight when the sun has just set below the horizon, but it's still, the light, its light, it still illuminates the sky in some way. Report an error in the passage at 19:23
19:54 You ever see that? I was at Tosar a few weeks ago, and it's amazing just to see once the sun sets behind the mountains, how the whole sky is still illuminated by the sun, and a very special quality of light. So applying this analogy to Zazen, we can say that Echo Hensho represents the state in which the act of thinking has ceased in the mind. Report an error in the passage at 19:54
20:20 It has sunsetted, right? And however, we're not left in complete darkness. Some people think, well, what happens if I start thinking? Everything will just be dark and I won't exist and all those kinds of things. And the reality is you're not left in darkness. If anything, you're left in true light. It's the thinking and the other things that get in our mind that actually create the darkness, you might say. Report an error in the passage at 20:20
20:44 But there's this afterglow of luminosity that still remains. names, right? And Which we can experience with kind of this beauty and this quality like no other. There's a clear, warm quality to this light. Excuse me a moment. I'm going to try this and see what happens. Report an error in the passage at 20:44
21:09 So the practice of Echo Henshou has been frequently advocated by numerous Zen teachers of the centuries. So I'll share a few quotes. So the 8th century Taoist master Lu Yan said that The turning around of Ekohensho is stopping, shamatha, and the light is seeing, vipassanā. If you can look back again and again into the source of mind, whatever you are doing, not sticking to any image of person or self at all, then this is turning the light around wherever you are. Report an error in the passage at 21:09
21:44 This is the finest practice. And then the 9th century Chan teacher, Linji Zhijuan, said, he inspired the Linji School of Zen, by the way, he taught, you must right now turn your light around and shine it on yourselves, not go seeking anywhere else. Then you will understand that in body and mind, you are no different from the ancestors and Buddhas, and that there is nothing to do. You're like, what? Report an error in the passage at 21:44
22:16 I came to a Zen center to do nothing? Right? It's true. It's true. We teach you to do nothing here. And yet we keep you very busy. And the 11th century Chan master Yuan Wu Kigen, who compiled the Blufco record, said the following in his Zen letters. The most important thing is for people of great faculty... Report an error in the passage at 22:16
22:42 and sharp wisdom to turn the light of the mind around and shine back and clearly awaken to this mind before a single thought is born. What is your mind before a single thought is born? In fact, I would encourage you in your zazen, study the space between your thoughts. Study the space before any thought arises. Study the space once a thought has dissolved, what is it that remains? Focus on that. Report an error in the passage at 22:42
23:11 The thoughts are pointless. You know, worthless. Don't even go there, right? Focus on the space before a single thought is born. That is the truer experience of reality that you can have. The thought is just extra. It's just a layer. It's a cover. It's a critique. It's, I could say, worthless in some ways. Report an error in the passage at 23:11
23:34 So then, of course, there's our founder, Ehe Dogen, the founder of Soto Zen, who... He said that the practice of Ekohencho is the heart of Zazen. So Dogen is saying this is the heart of Zazen. In his Fukan Zazengi, which is translated as Universal Recommendations for Zazen, Dogen counsels us to cease from practice based on intellectual understanding, pursuing words and following after speech, and learn the backward step that turns your light inwardly to illuminate yourself. Report an error in the passage at 23:34
24:10 And then he goes on to say that when we do this, then body and mind of themselves will drop away and your original face will be manifest, your original face will appear. So in other words, by turning the light of awareness inward to study our sense of self, and this is the study, what is this sense of a separate self? Report an error in the passage at 24:10
24:32 There's actually two selves that he's talking about here. First, we're studying the sense of a separate self. You know, our egoic self, you will. And then we also are studying the big self, as Sukhiroshi would call it, the boundless self, the Buddhist self, right? So we're studying those simultaneously, but usually it helps us to first start with, what's the sense of a separate self that I have, this egoic self, right? Report an error in the passage at 24:32
24:57 And when we study the sense of self, the separation between subject, the observer, and the object, that which is observed, begins to dissolve. Report an error in the passage at 24:57
25:09 Leading to the experience of what Dogen called dropping off body and mind. Shinjin Datsuraku. So Dogen says that upon dropping off body and mind, our Buddha face, our original self, our nondual nature is revealed. Report an error in the passage at 25:09
25:28 So this is quality that when we really turn the light inward and focus. right? Report an error in the passage at 25:28
25:35 This dissolution between subject and object, me here, you over there observing, falls away. And there begins to be no distinction. And this non-dual experience, what happens is we begin to be able to see our true nature, our non-dual nature. So we can think of this practice at Kohen Choa as turning the flashlight around, the shine on the light. Report an error in the passage at 25:35
26:02 To shine the light on the one who is holding the light. You ever do that? You try to turn the flashlight and shine? Who's holding this light? However, when we do so, we discover not only that no one, no separate individual permanent self is holding the light, but also that there is no one doing the looking. Report an error in the passage at 26:02
26:28 Uh-oh. Where are you taking us here? No one is holding the light and no one is doing the looking. Instead, what is revealed is the source of the light itself, which is the very mind ground from which all experience arises. Report an error in the passage at 26:28
26:46 So just as it's the nature of the sun to shine, it's the essential nature of awareness to be aware. So awareness simply awares. That's its nature. It illuminates all experience. It's illuminating. It awares. It shines. It knows. Its nature is knowing. Furthermore, awareness doesn't need to do anything special to know or illuminate itself. Because it's neither conditioned nor produced. Report an error in the passage at 26:46
27:19 I'm sorry, you can't create awareness. It's not conditioned, it's not produced. It's not a thing. You can't create it. Awareness knows or illuminates itself by being itself. Just as the sun illuminates itself by being itself. The sun doesn't go, oh, I think I'm going to illuminate myself today and turn around. No, it just is itself completely. It is the nature to illuminate. Report an error in the passage at 27:19
27:45 This is the same thing with awareness. As the non-dual teacher Rupert Spire reminds us, just as the sun is self-luminous, so our being is naturally self-aware. Report an error in the passage at 27:45
28:02 This light of awareness isn't just the light particular to one body, to our personal body, but it's the light of our creation. Report an error in the passage at 28:02
28:13 In The Secret of the Garden Flower, it's a text attributed to the 8th century Taoist master Lu Yan. He writes, The light is neither inside nor outside the self. Mountains, rivers, sun, moon, and the whole earth are all this light. So it is not only in the self. All the operations of intelligence, knowledge, and wisdom aspects of the cognitive mind are also this light. Report an error in the passage at 28:13
28:41 So it is not outside the self. The light of heaven and earth fills the universe. The light of one individual also naturally extends through heavens and covers the earth. Therefore, once you turn the light around, Everything in the world is turned around as well. So we hear in Lu Yan's statement here, these echoes of Shakyamuni's exclamation upon his moment of awakening, according to the Mahāyāna tradition. Report an error in the passage at 28:41
29:13 He said, I, together with the great earth and all sentient beings, simultaneously attain enlightenment. Or attain the way. Or attain perfect liberation. Report an error in the passage at 29:13
29:26 So once you turn the light around, you no longer see the apparently material world as separate, as fixed objects. Rather, you see that everything is actually made of light, the light of awareness. So right now, if you look around the room, what is it to not actually see objects, see separate people or things in the room? Report an error in the passage at 29:26
29:53 Everything you see is just a manifestation of light. And it's not a light that's separate from you. There's not little individual pockets of light. It's all the same light. I often use the analogy, it's all the same ocean of being. It's all the same ocean. You might see waves on the ocean, each of these are waves, waves of light, but they're still of the same water. Report an error in the passage at 29:53
30:17 They're still of the same light. They're just temporary manifestations that appear. So rather than seeing people See the light in each person. See each person as a light. And that includes yourself. So how would your experience of navigating the world be different if you saw everyone and everything as the same light itself? Report an error in the passage at 30:17
30:46 Not fixed. This is fluid, luminous, open spaciousness. Report an error in the passage at 30:46
31:03 So this brings me to my third and final light-based analogy, that of awareness as an inner sunlight, which shines softly, illuminating and warming the infinite space around and within us. So Thich Nhat Hanh said that, like the physical sun, which lights every leaf and every blade of grass, our awareness lights our every thought and feeling, allowing us to recognize them, be aware of their birth, duration, and dissolution without judging or evaluating, welcoming, or banishing. Report an error in the passage at 31:03
31:37 So again, we're invited to see the way in which our open awareness naturally and indiscriminately illuminates everything, illuminates whatever that appears within its field, every thought, every emotion, without grasping onto it, without pushing anything away, without manipulating experience whatsoever, right? Report an error in the passage at 31:37
32:04 So now, in many ways, the light of the awareness, I like to think of acts as a kind of alkahest. You know what an alkahest is? So the term alkahest comes from the ancient practice and language of alchemy. Anyone practice alchemy here? Oh, okay. Report an error in the passage at 32:04
32:24 And so... Alchemy is this philosophy and art of trying to transform base metals into something pure, such as gold. That was a big thing for a period of time. It's like, oh, we could just create gold out of copper. We'd get rich, right? And in alchemy, the alkahest... is conceived as a chemical, a kind of a universal solvent that was supposed to be capable of dissolving any composite substance without altering or destroying its fundamental components. Report an error in the passage at 32:24
32:57 So in other words, whatever this liquid, this alkahest, touches, it dissolves. And this is exactly what awareness, our inner sunlight, does when it touches any composite experience. Report an error in the passage at 32:57
33:14 So when we look closely enough at anything with full-on awareness, its solidity begins to soften and break up. So due to the alkahestic nature of awareness, that which was fixed, that which appeared stuck, clenched, closed, begins to dissolve and can begin to be freed up to naturally flow again. Report an error in the passage at 33:14
33:44 So, you know, it's sometimes the case when people first come to Zen practice, they appear somewhat kind of burdened, maybe a little closed in, shut down. And it seems that there's kind of this frozen blockage of emotion, thought that they're carrying around. And one that probably has built up over a long period of time. Report an error in the passage at 33:44
34:05 And it tends to kind of cut them off. And it also cuts them off not only from others and from kind of the world around them, but cuts them off from their own inner light and from heartfelt connections with others. So you can often see, you know, it's kind of this frozenness in certain people's eyes and their face and their body, the way they hold the body, the way they kind of engage with people. Report an error in the passage at 34:05
34:31 There's a lack of fluidity there in some way. this can often be because they have experienced a very difficult situation in their life. You know, grew up in painful circumstances, maybe had... Report an error in the passage at 34:31
34:51 themselves as kind of a defensive or protective measure. So you could say that they freeze out certain Report an error in the passage at 34:51
35:01 as grief or fear or even joy. Or their sense of self has become hardened in some way around a particular belief or a particular narrative about themselves. For example, that they're unlovable or they're not enough. For many, many years, I had the narrative of I'm not enough. And I know exactly the moment that that appeared, something my foster mother said to me, and a whole sense of self began to kind of... Report an error in the passage at 35:01
35:32 Stroll up around that and freeze around that and harden into that, you know, that belief. So I don't know if any of you can identify with that. If you can, anything in your own life or you kind of feel there's some belief or story of self that you've contracted, that you've frozen around, that you're carrying for a long period of time, you know. Report an error in the passage at 35:32
35:54 And it's not that there's something wrong with us. It's just how we learn to survive. It was a survival mechanism. It's understandable. But the question is, do you need that? Do you still need that at this point in your life? And so this process of freezing can also affect our bodies. Sometimes we have kind of numbness that might come up in our bodies, certain stiffness or contraction in certain areas. Report an error in the passage at 35:54
36:20 Sometimes we get frozen shoulders. We're afraid to move. We're so tight because we're afraid to engage with our life in some way. And so we kind of walk through life a little bit like kind of an iceberg with sharp edges, just kind of bumping into other things and each other in some way. And we might even have a sense that a good deal of ourselves is kind of submerged beneath the surface of our lives, something that's hidden even from us, kind of frozen to the degree that even we don't know what's in that block of ice. Report an error in the passage at 36:20
37:00 However, what I've witnessed over and over again is how consistent, when we take up a consistent practice in zazen, the frozen blockages of emotion and thought naturally begin to melt away. So the warm light of awareness, acting as an alcoholist, helps us to thaw and dissolve and release frozen parts of ourselves. Report an error in the passage at 37:00
37:22 You know, whatever emotions, thoughts, memories we might have, traumas, and so on. Parts of us that have been submerged or hidden in darkness for such a long time. And again, in many cases, from a very young age. And furthermore, as these frozen parts of our being begin to thaw and soften, sometimes painful experiences or layers of conditioning that have been long buried, they kind of come to the surface and they're exposed again. Report an error in the passage at 37:22
37:50 I kind of think of the glaciers. You know how they're discovering as the glaciers are melting, all these things that were buried deep in the glaciers are coming to the surface to be exposed again, including toxic things that ideally wouldn't be exposed. So old memories, feelings, traumas, experiences that have been trapped in the ice of the contracted self, they slowly emerge. Report an error in the passage at 37:50
38:16 And in many cases, they've been waiting for a long, long time to be resurfaced, to be acknowledged, to be felt, and to be integrated in some way and in the process released, right? So as this happens, we may experience ourselves crying a lot. We're sitting in Zazen. A lot of people have this experience. They first start sitting in Zazen, and they realize they're crying a lot. It's like, wait, I'm supposed to be peaceful here, right? Report an error in the passage at 38:16
38:45 I'm supposed to be happy, but I'm crying all the time. Why is that, right? And that's because the alcohol, the alcohol of awareness is melting all these frozen parts of ourselves and allowing it to come to the surface, to be seen, to be acknowledged, to be integrated, and to be released again, to be able to flow again. Report an error in the passage at 38:45
39:05 So, of course, our tears are going to flow in the process because we haven't felt what we were meant to feel a long time ago in some way, right? Report an error in the passage at 39:05
39:16 And so this is healthy, right? This is a healthy part of releasing and a part of our practice. And, you know, this process of dissolution and integration can be uncomfortable. It can be disorienting. Many people, you know, it's like, I don't know what to do with all these feelings that are coming up for me that I try not to feel for such a long time. Report an error in the passage at 39:16
39:38 And it's like, well, welcome them, hold them, hold them with tenderness, hold them with compassion and care, right? So sometimes I kind of think of it, it's like, you know, when your leg goes nam and zaza, am I the only one that happens to? Your leg goes nam and zaza and you're like, finding the bow rings and you're like, uh-oh, you know, you just want to get up. Report an error in the passage at 39:38
39:58 But, you know, the blood, the circulation of blood has been cut off, right? So it's painful, right? And you can't get up right away. You can't stand on it because you don't have it. And you can feel as the blood starts coming up again, there's what's it called, pins and needles? There's all this kind of, you know, you can feel that blood coming back, re-enlivening things, right? Report an error in the passage at 39:58
40:25 And so during these times, you need to be extra careful and gentle. You can't just pop off your cushion and start walking because you're going to fall, right? So you want to move slowly as the blood and the life come back into those parts of your being that have been frozen and shut off for such a long time. Report an error in the passage at 40:25
40:44 You treat those with care. And sometimes we even need some help with this process. Turning to a good friend, a teacher, a therapist, a spiritual mentor, someone who can help us navigate and hold the process with us. And as you begin to become reacquainted with many of these dark layers of feelings and experiences that have been buried for such a long time in the ice, you might notice how they frequently have Both stories and sensations attached to them. So I mentioned earlier, there might be a core story in there that is really at the root of that, basically the frozen parts, like I'm not good enough. Report an error in the passage at 40:44
41:32 Now, many people want to deal with the story. And sure, you can do that in therapy, and that's, you know, you come up, you work for your story, and maybe you come up with a healthier story, and it's okay to have stories to a certain degree. Report an error in the passage at 41:32
42:10 And of course, there's not a separate self per se. There's a self, but it's a created conditioned self, but it's not a separate self. And the Buddha Dharma reminds us over and over again, the belief in the separate self is actually what is the root of our suffering in some cases. So the story itself... Report an error in the passage at 42:10
42:34 I'm not good enough, whatever your story might be. I'm not enough, or a series of thoughts that you have. If you take the story away and you just remain with the sensation or the feeling that's in your body, and turn the light of awareness onto that, you'll notice in time, just a gentle, you're not trying to laser it away. Report an error in the passage at 42:34
42:56 This isn't, what is that stuff that you do with lasers, liposuction, or something like that. What's that? Ablation, right? This is a gentle, warm, kind, shining the light on it, allowing that sensation to be seen and feel into being welcomed and allowed. And over time, it's going to soften and release on its own accord, right? Through the process of awareness. Now, it won't necessarily feel good at first to turn and begin thawing or kind of frozen. Report an error in the passage at 42:56
43:32 You know, aspects of our being, right? Even if we try to stay with the process, sometimes we kind of fall back into old habits, right? Old mechanisms of avoidance. Or we attempt to leave or resist whatever it is that is trying to come to our attention because it might be too scary or you might feel have a story that's too difficult to meet or something like that. Report an error in the passage at 43:32
43:56 We might want to numb out again. Oh, you got a little bit of feeling, but you're like, oh, I'm not sure I want to deal with that. So we decide to numb out again. And many of the usual things, there's alcohol, drugs, shopping, social media, sex, you pick it. All these ways that we try to distract ourselves from feeling what we're actually feeling. But this doesn't work because it doesn't get to the root of what's still remaining there. Report an error in the passage at 43:56
44:27 In Zen, we say, turn around and face it. You've got to turn the light around and shine it and face it directly. See what it really is. Because that's the one thing that our frozen emotion thoughts can't withstand. Being faced, being seen, being acknowledged, being met with warm, loving sunlight of awareness. Report an error in the passage at 44:27
44:50 It's like the self, the same thing with the self. It's a little bit like the witch and the Wizard of Oz. You turn the light of awareness on, and they're going, I'm melting, right? Report an error in the passage at 44:50
45:02 In fact, over time, the more we practice, we begin to courageously invite the difficult feelings in, to get to know them. Not to get rid of them or get past them, but really to be able to integrate them, to get to know them intimately, right? Report an error in the passage at 45:02
45:23 And we're not practicing this with our minds. We're actually doing this with our hearts. So some people think, oh, that's an intellectual exercise. I can do that. No, it's a heart exercise you need to do it with. Report an error in the passage at 45:23
45:37 And these feelings, these feelings of frozen thought emotions that have been laid down in layers and bodies over the years for a long period of time, when a first layer comes up, then other layers are gradually going to reveal themselves. themselves but there's always another layer Report an error in the passage at 45:37
45:58 you want to keep looking at what's underneath it. It's like peeling the onion. So what's underneath that? And then the next layer. Keep going underneath, right? And what's going to happen is when we get down to the deepest layer, we encounter something about our existence, an existential feeling of lack or fear that is based in the deepest place of knowing and truth, right? Report an error in the passage at 45:58
46:23 That there is no inherent self. We keep peeling away self, self, self, story of self, and we get to the fact that there is no essential story of self there. There's no self there. There's just this wide open spacelessness again. And so when we can come there, when the egoic self totally melts away, there's just this open, boundless space. Report an error in the passage at 46:23
46:53 of luminosity and which is our true freedom. So the more we expose the entirety of ourselves to this warm light of awareness, what happens is in time we become mushy. We become mushy Buddhas. Like snow. You know how snowmen, when they're in the sun, over time they begin to get mushy, right? And they melt and they turn into water again. They return to their original nature of liquid. This is what happens to us. Report an error in the passage at 46:53
47:23 Become mushy snowmen. And it's lovely to see this when this happens. You often see this with people who have been practicing, particularly residents who have a period of time. They all come in, and over time they're like, and they get softer and more, you know, kind of gentle and loving and fluid, right? Report an error in the passage at 47:23
47:42 And you can just see it in their expressions, how they just kind of become more liquid-like. And the wonderful thing is that when we allow ourselves to melt, then the warm water that results affects others around us, right? When we're open and soft and, you know, welcoming, then other people feel that they too are allowed to do the same. Report an error in the passage at 47:42
48:06 They feel the invitation to also allow themselves to let go of those frozen aspects of their being and just be this open, fluid, luminous self, right? And we encourage others. So in time, the waters of our mutual melting flow together. What happens is we create a sea of love together. All these frozen icebergs on the ocean of being suddenly melt and it's just this sea, this ocean of fluid love. Report an error in the passage at 48:06
48:37 It all comes back to love, by the way. You know that, right? I would propose to you that a whole being wants to be seen. It wants to be recognized, received, released, illuminated by the light of pure knowing so that there are no dark corners, no shadows, no frozen parts, no place for fear or distress or doubt to hide. Report an error in the passage at 48:37
49:01 And this is the power of both Avalokiteshvara and Prajan Paramita, to see, witness, listen to, and hold with loving awareness the entirety of our experience and, of course, particularly our suffering. So to study the self, to study the small self, it's to study what is it that obstructs the light of awareness? What is it that obstructs our compassion? Report an error in the passage at 49:01
49:28 What gets in the way or throws shadows on or blocks out the love or the inner illumination that's already there? And even when we get blinded by our own emotions, our thoughts, our karmic obscurations, the light of awareness is always present. It never leaves us. It's what we fundamentally are. It doesn't leave us. We leave it. We turn away from the light. And so our endeavor is to attend, attend, attend, attend to the light, give attention, give mindfulness to all the experiences, such as we to the full experience. Report an error in the passage at 49:28
50:10 There is no longer any perception of self and other. right? Report an error in the passage at 50:10
50:14 Again, this light dissolves any field of separation. No subject or object, no form of duality whatsoever. There's just this field of luminous presence. Again, you could call that love. And the Buddha Dharma tells us that essentially everything we see is light. Everything we see is nothing more than a modulation of awareness, of a luminous knowing. Report an error in the passage at 50:14
50:42 And all matter and experience is nothing more than this manifestation of Buddha lights. And the invitation of Zazen in practice is to simply rest in that light and allow who you truly are to be revealed and to shine. So when you're sitting Zazen, you're just sitting there as this lamp, this infinite boundless lamp of luminosity. Report an error in the passage at 50:42
51:07 That's all you have to do. There's nothing else to do in Zazen. Allow yourself to be the luminosity you already are, right? And maybe study what places are not yet illuminated that I need to maybe direct a little bit of light towards in some way, right? Okay, so I'll conclude there. I went over it a little bit. My apologies, but there's no Q &A today, so I kind of thought that would be okay. Report an error in the passage at 51:07
51:38 So I'm just going to conclude with a final stanza from Amanda Gorman's poem, The Hill We Climb. I don't know if you all remember this. This was from the 2021 presidential inauguration in which she encourages us to find light, particularly during difficult times. She writes, When day comes, we step out of the shade, aflame and unafraid. Report an error in the passage at 51:38
52:02 The new dawn blooms as we free it. For there is always light, if only we're brave enough to see it, if only we're brave enough to be it. Are you brave enough to be the light you already are? Report an error in the passage at 52:02
52:20 So thank you very much for your attention and patience. And if you are sitting the rest of today, enjoy self-illumination. And if you are going out into the sunshine, enjoy self-illumination. Report an error in the passage at 52:20
52:37 Thank you for being the light that you are. Thank you for listening to this podcast offered by the San Francisco Zen Center. Our Dharma talks are offered free of charge, and this is made possible by the donations we receive. Report an error in the passage at 52:37
52:53 Your financial support helps us to continue to offer the Dharma. For more information, please visit sfzc.org and click Giving. May we fully enjoy the Dharma. Report an error in the passage at 52:53
Related talks
Talk by Tenzen David Zimmerman, recorded 25 July 2026. Original at San Francisco Zen Center: https://sfzc.engagewisdom.com/talks/turning-light-around-illuminate-light. Licensed No license stated; shared with the archive's knowledge (courtesy note). Transcript generated automatically and may contain errors; the audio is the authoritative version.
Listen on San Francisco Zen Center · No license stated; shared with the archive's knowledge (courtesy note)