Good evening. My meditation practice has been deepening lately. I hope the same is true for you.

Three words have helped. I want to thank our teachers, especially Roshi Janet, for bringing them to my awareness.

Together they form a powerful koan.

Notice.

Allow.

Breathe.

You may have noticed that these words have been in every dharma talk that Roshi has given since September [audio]. Other teachers and senior students have also mentioned them. You have probably heard the meditation monitors, including me, say them during zazen (sitting meditation) and kinhin (walking meditation).

At our Zen dicussion circle in November, we talked about “allowing” emotions, and some shared that theirs were a little raw after the recent election and other troubling events.

“Notice, allow, breathe” is a powerful and simple description of Zen practice.

Pay attention to your life. The good, the bad and the ugly, all of it.

Ideally we skip those labels, which are unhelpful products of our mind. Often that’s unavoiadable. Notice the labeling, allow the labeling, and breathe.

Roshi’s talks are worth revisiting on the Still Mind Zendo website. She uses several metaphors to explain this method:

A tapestry. Every thread is essential and must be included, or the tapestry unravels.

The ocean. You can’t separate the ocean from its waves.

A clouded lens that you polish with your brain.

A house.

Here’s a quote about that last metaphor: “If I allow you to come into my house,” she said, “I do not have to liek you, agree with you or support you. But I allow you in.”

This teaching, and the importance of the breath in realizing its truth, goes all the way back to the Buddha and his yoga training, as we heard during the annual Rohatsu* season. (*A celebration in December of the Buddha’s enlightenment under the bodhi tree.)

Everything is interconnected. All the atoms, sensations and thoughts flowing through these bodies… and all the things in the boundless space between them… They are an expression of all the causes and conditions of the universe from the Big Bang to this moment that is unfolding before us in this room.

How could it be otherwise?

Notice.

Allow and breathe.

I have tried to make a habit of putting htis koan into rpactice in my daily life. Some examples…

A few weeks ago, I injured my left knee. The simplest things became difficult, and I had to walk very deliberately. I had to be careful not to take a misstep, or stumble, and worse the injury. But I also had to avoid favoring it too much.

I would take a step, notice the pain.

Allow the pain.

Breathe.

I had to remind myself these three words are not a mantra. We should not fetishize them as ideas or concepts. They describe an activity before thought arises.

Verbs, not nouns. Noticing, allowing, breathing.

Over time I noticed that the knee was getting better, and a doctor confirmed there is no lasting damage.

Since then, I have been trying to keep up the habit of scanning my body. I check in on my physical sensation when I first wake up. When I sit down for zazen. During kinhin. In the levator lobby. Riding the subway.

Waiting in line at Trader Joe’s.

It’s a great practice.

[PAUSES AND BREATHES]

Another example. One Friday morning in November we were sitting here in the zendo, and workmen began jackhammering and ripping apart the building behind us.

Welcome to meditation in New York City.

We are surrounded by noise. Sirens. Car horns. Whistles. Loud music. Barking dogs. Yelling on the street. Construction.

That building is gone now. You can see clear through to 1rth Street. But on this morning, the workers were right at our level. Sparks were flying. They were hollering back and forth.

I put my attention on each sound, letting the noise flow through me.

I won’t say it was ugly. I won’t say it was beautiful. It just was.

Noticing it, allowing it, breathing at the same time.

More than once I lost track of hte sounds. I had tuned them out. My mind was wandering. I noticed my thoughts. I allowed them. I breathed, and then returned to noticing the noises outside.

Allow and breath. Allow and breathe.

There’s a scientific term for that tuning out. It’s a survival mechanism prsent in all of our neurons, found in every living creature on earth.

It’s called habituation.

Here’s a definition from Tali Sharot, a professor of cognitive neuroscience at University College London and MIT. She writes about habituation in a book called “Look Again: The Power of Noticing What Was Always There.”

I’ll paraphrase her: Habituation is our tendency to respond less and less to phenomena that are frequent or constant.

Let’s say you walk into a room where someone was smoking a cigarette. At first the smell is overwhelming. But studies show that within about 20 minutes, you barely detect the smell. Your olfactory neurons grow used to it. (This is why smokers seem unaware that we all know they’re smokers.)

Or maybe you’re sitting in a room reading a book and feel a wave of relief. You realize that ht noisy radiator stopped clanking. The neurons in your hears had grown habituated to the sound.

The studies also who that we stop responding physiologically and emotionally to more complex phenomena.

Sometimes these are things that people label positive. Maye you get a raise, and you feel great for the first few paychecks. Then you forget about it.

A new phone, a new car, new clothes, a new relationship. They spark joy at first, then the joy wears off. It’s not because they are no longer a cause for joy. We’ve just stopped noticing.

We also stop responding to things we label as negative. Aches and pains. A leaky faucet. Problems in the workplace. People begging on the streets.

Economic inequality. Sexism. Racism. Greed, hatred, ignorance (what the Buddha calls the three poisons).

This biological tendency has consequences. If we become habituated to the “good things,” and stop appreciating them, we experience less joy. If we stop noticing the “bad things,” and tune them out, we won’t be driven to change them.

According to the book, studies show that people who are less prone to habituation are more creative, have stronger relationships, are healthier and happier. They are more committed to social change.

Professor Sharot has some suggestions for what she calls the power of noticing:

Take frequent breaks.

Change your environment. Go outside into nature. Walk around. Take a different route to work.

Write things down in a journal. Talk to other people, and really listen, notice what they are saying. Quiet your inner monologue and give your full attention.

Real conversation is a form of noticing. At our zen circle after the election, people shared a lot of eomtoins. I listened as others spoke about fear, anger, worry, anxiety. Feeling numb. Feeling hopeless. Feeling sad.

And I listened to myself too. I had not noticed the full range and nuance of what I was feeling until I allowed the words to come out of me.

And every time someone in the circle said the words “breath” or “breathe” — which was a lot, these were Zen practitioners — I took a deep breath myself.

The professor’s book does have a hole in it, in my opinion. She is talking about mindfulness, but she doesn’t use the word, and the book doesn’t mention meditation. And she is focused on a goal, on happiness. Many Zen teachers will tell you that being fixated on a goal will, paradoxically, be counterproductive in meditation and your practice.

In Zen, our focus is on waking up. And the method is simple. Not easy, but simple.

Stuck on the subway? Notice, allow, breathe. An upsetting news alert on your phone? Allow and breathe. (And maybe turn off those alerts).

Annoyed? Angry? Sad? Anxious? Ashamed? Notice. Allow. Breathe.

My labeling mind looks at this list and sees a lot of negatives. When I notice negative thoughts and labeling, I try to remember the words of Maezumi Roshi, the founder of our White Plum lineage.

Also three words: “Appreciate your life.”

[BREATHES AND PAUSES]

Noticing how a favorite sweater feels when I put it on. Really looking at the pictures on the walls of our apartment. I loved them when we put them up.

Breathing in deeply when I smell dinner cooking.

Giving the purring cat on my lap my full attention as I stroke her warm fur.

Really listening to a favorite song, not treating it as background music.

Giving my full attention to my loved ones when they are telling me a story.

Walking through the city without earphones. Listening to the passing shouts of children, or the wind, or the sound of rain hitting the sidewalk.

The first sip of coffee. The first bite of a sandwich.

The last sip. The last bite.

All of it.

Notice… allow… breathe.

Notes

I gave a slightly shorter version of this talk on Dec. 12, 2024 at Still Mind Zendo (34 W. 15th St., near Union Square, Manhattan).

Readers interested in the topic of habituation are encouraged to listen to Dan Harris’s interview with Tali Sharot on Episode 828 of the the 10 Percent Happier podcast, which inspired part of this talk.

For a deeper exploration of the topic of “present moment awareness focused on the body/breath,” please see these free talks by Janet Jiryu Abels, the head teacher (roshi) at Still Mind Zendo.

Sept. 14, 2024: “Living Present-Momentness”

Oct. 14, 2024: “Zen is simple. Why is it so difficult?”

Nov. 9, 2024: “Living with an open mind”

Dec. 3, 2024: “Connecting with the Buddha’s humanity”