Good morning everyone, or at least everyone on the West Coast, good morning. And on the East Coast, later morning, and in Europe, good afternoon or good evening.

As you can see, Gil^[1] is not giving the morning meditation today. I am. For those of you who don't know who I am, I am Paul Haller, a Dharma teacher at the San Francisco Zen Center. For three weeks—this is the second week of a three-week series called Harmony of Vipassanā^[2] and Zen—Gil suggested that there are three teachers: there's Gil, myself, and then Fu Schroeder^[3], who's the abbess of one of the temples at San Francisco Zen Center. Gil suggested that during this time, he would give the guided meditations for the first week, I would do them for the second, and then Fu would do them for the third.

Within our intensive, we are taking up the topic of the harmony of Vipassanā and Zen through the established teaching of early Buddhism of sīla^[4], samādhi^[5], and paññā^[6]. For this morning, I'll translate them as sīla as the behavior that supports practicing, samādhi as the continuous contact of awareness, and then paññā as the fruits of sīla and samādhi. Over the course of Buddhist teachings and Buddhist practice, paññā, or in Sanskrit, prajñā, has been related to in a variety of ways.

Here's what I'm going to suggest to you this morning, three ways. The first one is understanding. As we bring awareness to the human condition, actually more particularly, when we bring the awareness to our version, the "me" version of what's happening, we start to see the subjective world that's created by me.

The second version of paññā, or wisdom, is insight. We start to not so much just draw conclusions—it includes that—but it's more that it's as if we see what's happening in a broader way than just within the world according to me. You see something more thorough, more expansive than just the world according to me.

And then the third way is what I'm going to call realization. It is where the moment is experienced so thoroughly that we literally forget the world according to me. We forget creating an interpretation and understanding, and just the immediacy of experiencing the moment has teaching that goes beyond how we think, how we conclude, how we judge, how we reference our version of reality, our version of the self. So these three, and they support each other.

First of all, I'll offer a meditation. The way I'll offer it is referring to understanding. Out of our understanding comes our intention to practice, and actually out of our understanding comes our notion of what practice is and how to practice it. But primarily, the great gift of it is this intention to practice. And then it also includes how to practice. We have an understanding of how to practice, and then that opens us to how that understanding of practice engages what's happening for us in the moment.

Part of the understanding is an acceptance of what's happening for us at the moment. It's not that we're broken and we need to be fixed. It's not that there's a pristine consciousness that we're determined to create. It's more that each moment is itself, and we are engaging it in a way that allows that to be so. It allows that to be the lived reality of the moment. So that creates an intention and an attitude.

Okay, this is about being present for what's happening. It's not about control. It's not about making something happen that's not already happening. It's about aligning the mind, aligning the emotions, aligning the body, aligning the breath with the activity of awareness, and being fully present for what that creates.

So let's do it.

If you could just start by noticing. And if you can, in just noticing what's happening, intend non-interference. Noticing the difference between doing noticing and being noticing. The difference between doing noticing and being noticing.

And then bring that delicate awareness to noticing the body. What physical sensation is most apparent? Sometimes we notice a tightness, some part of the body is complaining a little bit. Sometimes we can feel the heart beating.

And then intentionally open the body to awareness. Traditionally that means an uprightness, a sense of balance, a sense of physical attention, and a sense of ease. And each body has its own response to those notions. Noticing the response of your body, with the intention and attitude of being aware of physicality.

And then quite deliberately bring awareness to the exhale. Two characteristics I would offer you in relating to the exhale. One is, when we're asleep, the breath and the body dictate how the breath is, not the mind. So can you allow the body to express that kind of breath? It's like rather than having an idea about how you should breathe, trying to notice how is the breath when you just leave it alone.

A very standard phrase for relating to the breath in awareness meditation is "following the breath." The breath is allowed to breathe, and the attention follows that experience. And our noticing is all-inclusive. If our attention is mixed, interrupted by thoughts, ambient sounds, so good.

And then the other quality of breath on the exhale is like a sigh. Like softly letting something fall away. And often when we engage the breath like this, allowing it to be what it is, allowing it to be designed by the body not the mind, and we release with the exhale, it helps create a capacity to notice how the breath can have an emotional quality to it. And we can use that attribute of breathing to help create awareness in the moment.

And then as you breathe in, can the inhale be allowing whatever is going on in the mind and emotions, just allowing it to happen. Inviting awareness of it. It's almost like we're feeling the texture of it. Is there ease in the emotions in the mind? Is there a particular topic, issue that's causing some disturbance? Sometimes there's an unsettledness that doesn't have a particular topic.

So as we breathe in, this allowing. Allowing what's going on in the heart-mind of being. It's almost like we're reassuring the heart-mind of being that it's utterly okay to just be what it is. It's okay. It's okay. And with the exhale, so be it.

All things arise and pass away. This is the great rhythm of life. Arising, becoming with the inhale, releasing with the exhale. In a tender way, in a way that supports the delicate nature of our mind and emotions in how they ripple through the body and the breath.

And this intention, this attitude, disposition starts to make evident what we are in this moment. Starts to make evident the state of mind. This emotionality of being. We're not attempting to change it. We're attempting to be as fully attentive and engaged with it as possible.

[Music]

And as we continue this process, we can notice and acknowledge. With each breath, we start over. Allowing, opening, receiving the mind, the emotionality, the physicality. And with each exhale, releasing. And whatever happens is the gift of the moment. Whatever happens.

The next breath is a new beginning. A new intention, a new moment of acceptance.

And with the beginning of each breath cycle, an intentional commitment to awareness. To letting the body breathe, the mind be mind, and letting the human organism that you are express itself in response to that body and breath and mind.

[Music] [Applause]