This podcast is offered by the San Francisco Zen Center on the web at sfzc.org. Our public programs are made possible by donations from people like you. Good morning, everyone. Welcome to everyone sitting here in this and online, thank you for being here. I'm so grateful to be here talking to you, and I have to start by thanking a number of people at the risk of hopefully not making it sound like the Academy Award thank yous. But I want to start by thanking Abbot Jiryu for the generous invitation to be here to speak from this seat, and to Timo Blank, who invited me many months ago now.

[01:10]

And a lot of thanks to my primary teacher, Daito Steve Weintraub, I'm very grateful for his teaching. And I'm very grateful to be practicing with all of you, all at San Francisco Zen Centers, temples. I also practice with Presidio Hill Zen Center, Steve's group, and Everyday Zen, Norman Fisher, Zouketsu Norman Fisher's group. I'm very grateful to all of the people I practice with there. And most grateful to all of the residents and practitioners at Green Gulch who make it possible for us to be here and to have been here for lo these many years.

[02:10]

This is the first Sunday Dharma talk that I've given. I have spoken in this Zendo before. I did so as Xu So, or head student of a practice period back in 2021. The opportunity to sit here and think about a talk and deliver a talk that is hopefully helpful really draws up from me my own attempt to really consider what Zen practice means in my life. As they say in the koans and the teaching stories, what is the living meaning of Zen? What is it to live this practice? I feel extremely lucky in my life to have found Zen Buddhism, this practice,

[03:18]

It's really given me the opportunity to turn my energies toward the truth of our lives and away from, I would say, habitual emotional energies that really foster, only foster suffering. So I'm really grateful for this practice. I'd like to briefly introduce myself. There are many of you here I don't know and who don't know me, so how it is that I come to be sitting here today. I lived and practiced at San Francisco Zen Center and all three temples for about 10 years in the 1970s into the 80s, including a few years here at Green Gulch. I then went on to medical school in 1982 and worked as an emergency room doctor until I retired in 2016.

[04:25]

For quite some time now, as I said, I've been practicing with my teacher, Steve Weintraub, and I was ordained in 2018 and then was Shuso here in the practice period of 2021. So more than 50 years have gone by since I first sat down for Zazen instruction, as some of you did this morning. I first sat down for Zazen instruction in front of a sunny white wall in the basement of the Page Street building quite a long time ago now. I'll turn 75 later this year. The number of years, the passage of the months and the years on the calendar, you know, the flying by of the pages on the calendar to use an image that probably a lot of people, it's kind of a quaint image now.

[05:40]

But all that time flying by seems rather abstract. But what is not abstract are the friends and the relatives no longer alive, the aching that never seems to go away in my knees from wear and tear, the palpitations that I take medication for, all of these kinds of things. Each day seems to bring some news of someone I know ill or worse or myself. And I have grandchildren. God, God help me. How did that happen? Wonderful grandchildren. So all of this makes me, I often think these days of the words, not now, if not now, when, you know, that familiar phrase comes up.

[06:43]

I just learned that it was spoken by Hillel, ancient Jewish sage, fits Buddhism very well as well, if not now, when. I also think of the words that are written on the back of my raksu, my miniature Buddha's robe, those words are, to be faithful to our true nature is the only way to live in our life, the only way to live in this world. To be faithful to our true nature is the only way to live in this world. My understanding of that statement is that our zen practice how we try to live our lives is to try to wake up again and [...] again to who we most deeply are to our deep clear awakened nature that's always there and to the basic goodness at our core

[07:52]

And because I feel more urgency about this matter than ever, I was attracted to the teaching that I'm going to say a little bit about this morning. The topic of my talk is an early teaching of the Buddhas called the Satipatthana Sutta. This is an early sutta that deals with the practice of mindfulness. It is usually translated as the four foundations of mindfulness or the four ways of establishing mindfulness or the four fields in which we practice mindfulness. Those four fields are described in the sutta as mindfulness of mind, excuse me, mindfulness of body and breath, mindfulness of feeling, mindfulness of mind and emotion, and mindfulness of dharmas, which refers to the patterns of mind and emotion and consciousness as described in Buddha's teaching.

[09:13]

The sutta in its many sections gives detailed meditation instructions on 13 separate topics in addition to those detailed meditation instructions about which i don't have much time to talk so i'm going to concentrate mainly my remarks about the introduction to these 13 separate topics and a refrain that occurs over and over again in the sutta. I recommend looking into this sutta and going into it in more detail for anyone who's interested. It's really a foundational teaching of Buddhism and would repay study greatly. Here, just to give you a flavor of the words of the sutta or the opening words.

[10:18]

And this is Ananda speaking. I heard these words of the Buddha one time when he was living in Kama Sadama, a market town of the Kuru people. There he addressed the monks thus. Also, the word bhikkhu is used as a synonym for monk. And I should say that the use of the word monk or bhikkhu in this sutta really refers to us, to all of us who are interested in these teachings and want to take them up and aspire to take them up and do practice them. So the Buddha addressed the monks thus, monks, venerable sir, they replied, The Blessed One said this, monks, there is a most wonderful way, a direct path to help living beings realize purification, overcome directly grief and sorrow, pain and anxiety, pain and anxiety, travel the right path and realize nirvana.

[11:35]

This is the way of the four establishments of mindfulness. In other words, Here the Buddha tells us is the direct path to liberation. The Sutta discusses further the practice of mindfulness, which to start with, simply put, is paying attention. This most wonderful, as the Buddha says, and direct path to deeply understanding the reality of our lives is simply to pay close attention to the intimate experience, the intimate substance of our direct experience. To really pay attention to the intimate substance of our moment-to-moment existence, we are told, is the way to liberation, to freeing ourselves. The intimate substance, the good news is, of our moment-to-moment existence is always available.

[12:40]

to that reality, which is the responsibility of all of our lifetimes. Waking up to that reality is the path. Other translations of these words has this as the only path to liberation, to freeing ourselves from the suffering that we create with our minds and to bringing ourselves and others more ease in this life. The only path, they say. What other path could there be, actually, than this, the exact nature of each of our lives? Here the Buddha teaches is the way to live our lives that causes the least suffering and the most good. Here's a quote that I found from the great teacher Thich Nhat Hanh. is a clever way to enjoy life. Happiness is available.

[13:43]

Please help yourself to it. How wonderful, Thich Nhat Hanh. So my desire and our desire for happiness at the deepest level, for what we would call true happiness, leads us here to this elemental teaching and i i like the word elemental here because it just refers to the elements as i said of our experience our intimate in inward and outward experience so we're brought to this elemental teaching one which the buddha all but guarantees that have followed with diligence and sincerity will relieve the suffering of self and other self and others the suffering that is caused by our emphasizing our separation between self ourselves and others the buddha tells us that by developing the capacity of mindfulness the capacity to pay attention

[15:03]

we will inevitably come to liberation. And this may seem astonishing. How could this simple act lead to freedom? We're all endowed with awareness. We don't usually notice it or pay much attention to it. We may take it for granted, which is probably part of the problem. we automatically have awareness and we may not recognize that there's a way of developing our awareness that leads to more peace and less unhappiness. So I'd like to go on and speak a little about a few, just a couple of the preliminary or introductory features of the sutta that have stood out for me in reading about it and thinking about it.

[16:04]

As I said, this Satipatthana Sutta is divided into four main sections describing mindfulness or the fields of mindfulness of body and breath, of feeling, of mind and emotion, and of dharmas or patterns of consciousness. Before going into these four sections at length, however, the Buddha introduces them with a very helpful description of the mental qualities needed for pursuing this path, for what you might call a helpful frame of mind to assume in taking up this practice and making it not only a practice, but a way of life that will tend... toward not causing harm and toward being a benefit in the world for oneself and others. Here, for example, is the Buddha's introduction to the subject of mindfulness of the four fields and mindfulness of body.

[17:16]

He says, what are the four? What are the four fields? Here, bhikkhus, in regard to the body, a bhikkhu abides. contemplating the body ardent, clearly knowing and mindful, free from desires and discontent in regard to the world. He goes on to repeat this prescription for what he calls the essential mental qualities needed to walk this path for each of the other three fields of mindfulness as well. The first quality he describes is to be ardent or passionate, which also means to be diligent or zealous. The English word used here, ardent, which is a translation of the Pali word atapa, comes from the Latin root meaning to burn or to glow.

[18:25]

The implication is that we have a warm eagerness or energy in our practice. I came across a quote from Suzuki Roshi that reminded me of this. He said in one of his talks, the true practice of zazen is to sit as if drinking water when you're thirsting. I really love that. It's so... describes the spirit of what we're doing, sitting zazen. Zazen satisfies that kind of need, that kind of thirst. Ardor, I'm not sure about my New York accent in pronouncing this word. Ardor, A-R-D-O-R, is derived from our recognition, of the preciousness of these teachings, our good fortune in finding them, also from our understanding of the impermanence of our lives, and from our experience, hopefully, that when we take up the way of living with mindfulness, usually there are good results.

[19:50]

Actually, when I think about it, all that's really necessary to be ardent about this practice is to recognize that one is a suffering human being, which comes to my attention now and then. Next, after ardour, the Buddha tells his followers to abide contemplating the body with mindfulness, mindful attention. The Pali word translated as mindfulness is sati, as in Satipatthana Sutta. The word sati in the Pali conveyed the meaning or the sense of remembrance. In this context, it means remembrance or recollection of the present moment. It means bear attention to the experience of each moment, sustained awareness of what is happening to us inwardly and outwardly in each occasion of experience.

[21:04]

Mindfulness is concerned with keeping the attention on the object or bringing it back to the object of consciousness, keeping the mind from drifting off as one teacher has said under the sway of random thoughts into mental proliferation and forgetfulness. Mindfulness also includes remembering in the sense of remembering our own awakened nature and that we may and can return to it again and again. Then the Buddha instructed that our mindfulness should be associated with what he called clear knowing or comprehension, sampajana in Pali. By this is meant the quality of clear knowing, understanding of what one is experiencing. What is the wide setting of what we are experiencing?

[22:06]

This includes our understanding of the purpose and appropriateness of our actions. And what is it that really matters the most to us? I think this is included in this clear knowledge. It implies a wide and wise understanding of our lives in each moment, as wide and wise as we may muster. This is right view, the first step on the Buddhist Eightfold Path. seeing the world and our life as it really is that we we may feel are tiny and insignificant and at the same time we truly are the entire universe and everything we do truly is of immeasurable importance this is all part of clear knowing lastly

[23:12]

In the prescription for proper frame of mind, the Buddha instructed that one should abide contemplating the body free from desires and discontent in the world. How to understand this? To be human is, by definition, to be very much subject to desires and discontent. It hardly... is a mystery to think about that to be human is by definition to be very much subject to our desires and discontents my understanding of this instruction to be free of these things is is that it's our practice to recognize our human desires and dissatisfactions to meet them as they arise and not be governed by them not be caught by them, not be stuck on them.

[24:13]

We may learn to enjoy or appreciate or at the very least to tolerate our embodied existence, to tolerate this embodied existence if not enjoy it. Appreciate what comes no matter what comes and no matter what does not come. A few months ago, I had my own brush with mortality when I was given a tentative cancer diagnosis, which turned out, fortunately, to be something far less serious. But it occurs to me that, you know, it's our job, our task, our path as human beings to appreciate our embodied existence, no matter what comes, even something as potentially serious as this.

[25:18]

Thank you all for hanging in here with me. In the body of the sutta, there are many meditation instructions, as I said, with very concrete details as to how to meditate on body, breath, feelings, and so forth. And prior to each one of these, as I said, there's a refrain repeated 13 times testifying to its importance. Here's a little bit of the refrain, which is stated in the instructions about how to meditate on the body or to abide contemplating on the body. This is a quote from the sutta. In this way, In regard to the body, she, a practitioner, abides contemplating the body internally, or she abides contemplating the body externally, or she abides contemplating the body both internally and externally.

[26:56]

Or she abides contemplating the nature of arising in the body, or she abides contemplating the nature of passing away in the body, or she abides contemplating the nature of both arising and passing away in the body. So I wanted to say just a little bit about this instruction to abide contemplating the body internally internally, and externally or both simultaneously because it feels somehow pivotal to me, crucial. Maybe it's presumptuous to separate out some part of this sutta as more pivotal than another, but at this moment for me and in my life, this instruction has been important.

[27:59]

So I just wanna try to say, a few words about it. It reminded me of words from Dogen's Genjo Koan, our founder, Dogen Zenji. In Genjo Koan says, all things coming and carrying out practice enlightenment through the self. All things coming and carrying out practice enlightenment through the self. is realization. So to abide contemplating, to dwell contemplating, to patiently tolerate while contemplating, as it says in the sutta, is to be receptive of all things that come to us. And I should say also that The use of the word contemplate here is not, of course, referring to a solely intellectual process.

[29:06]

I think of this phrase to abide contemplating as implying something like to savor with our whole body and mind each experience, to appreciate the nature of each experience. inside or outside, whether we like it or not. It has little to do with whether we like it or not. We abide contemplating the bodily sensations that come to us, sensations of breath, posture, tightness of muscle, sensation of cold and warmth, our thoughts and emotions. We could call this contemplating the body internally. And we abide contemplating. We are receptive of color, sound, smell, interactions with other persons and beings.

[30:10]

And we might describe this as contemplating the body externally. We may see that we have the same relationship in a certain way to things that come to us from the inside as well as things that come from what we call outside. We know or experience or meet all these things that we call objects of consciousness from the same place. The Buddha in the Satipatthana Sutta tells us to pay attention to both inside and outside. to take full responsibility for what's outside as well as inside. This is to be mindful of the speech and action of others, to meet what comes from outside with non-rejection, to notice that what appears to be coming

[31:20]

from outside is really my life, really is Buddha's body. This is to understand that everything that happens in the world is my life, that it's impossible to exclude oneself from any of it. Things may happen constantly that appear to assault us from outside. People close to us may betray us, terrible things. may happen to those of us we love best. All sorts of things. We would like to exclude such things, but it's impossible. To relieve suffering and to enjoy life with all of its tragic beauty requires that we accept everything that comes. We meet everything with ardor because everything that comes is truly our life. And this attitude fosters our being able to engage with the world in a positive way.

[32:25]

When I left SFZC to go to medical school and eventually to practice medicine, I tried to carry this teaching with me, that is to abide contemplating internally and externally, to try best as I could to actualize the lack of separation between myself and the people I helped to take care of in the emergency room. Of course, this practice immediately points out the many, many, many obstacles that come up in my mind that keep me from understanding another person's heart or mind and suffering as my own. These obstacles are emotions like jealousy, pride, aversion, anger, fear, and ignorance. All those emotions that when pursued or followed after tend to reinforce ego and separation from other people.

[33:36]

An important section of this sutta concerns practicing with these emotions. or hindrances to connection. And the wonderful thing about Buddhist practice is that we're encouraged to meet these emotions with the same equanimity and open-heartedness with which we meet all the moments of our awareness. By not turning away from the difficulties in our own hearts and minds, we nourish our lives and all beings. I just wanted to end with a brief quote from a poem by W.H. Auden called As I Walked Out One Evening. He speaks to our imperfections, all of the difficulties we have, things that get in the way of our connecting with and loving other people.

[34:44]

He says, You shall love your crooked neighbor with all your crooked heart. You shall love your crooked neighbor with all your crooked heart. In our imperfection is perfect reality, as Suzuki Roshi put it, another way to say the same thing. The sutta offers us a way to meet our life, to enjoy it, to really appreciate each moment, and to work with our life, whatever the circumstances, to abide contemplating whatever comes from inside and outside, and to savor the taste of each moment. Thank you very much for your most kind attention. We appreciate it. Thank you for listening to this podcast offered by the San Francisco Zen Center.

[35:50]

Our programs are made possible by the donations we receive. Please help us to continue to realize and actualize the practice of giving by offering your financial support. May we fully enjoy the Dharma.

[36:16]

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