This podcast is offered by San Francisco's Zen Center on the web at sfcc.org. Our public programs are made possible by donations from people like you. Now on. Well, first off, welcome to everybody. Hello to San Francisco Zen Center, to the city center. I appreciate seeing all of you here. And especially, it's kind of a, it's warm fall day. And thank you for taking time out of this beautiful day to be here. We're all such disparate folks.

[01:20]

Some of us know each other, some of us are strangers to each other. Maybe it's not clear what we have in common. Maybe it is. I want to say that I think that one reason that we're here together in this room, on this corner of San Francisco, The reason that we're all here together, or a reason, one of the reasons, is that we share a common bond, a common desire, a yearning, which is that each one of us, I believe, has the hope and intention to live a useful life. I think that we want to find how to find the... the best way to go through this complicated thing called our life.

[02:23]

And I would even imagine that or even believe that we don't just feel this about ourselves but that we feel this about the others that we know and don't know. That we want them as well to have a good life. To realize their full potential. And here we are together at this place called San Francisco Zen Center, which is a Buddhist temple, which is a place dedicated towards encouraging us, giving us a means, a kind of a vocabulary, a practice of waking up. I'm here this morning for a bunch of reasons, a lot of reasons. I don't want to oversimplify it, but one reason I'm here is because on a morning many years before, decades in fact, I walked up on a Saturday morning and came to the lecture.

[03:39]

And I liked it. Somehow. No recollection of it now. But what I do remember is that I came back. What was the reason, I ask myself sometimes, what was the reason that I came here? I was in my early 20s. And I think I can say that I walked up the steps of the Zen Center because in some ways I was disappointed with my life. Now, I wasn't in the midst of a crushing disappointment, but I don't want to make it too heavy. I was also happy with my life. But I had this feeling that maybe there was something more I could do or something, some other way I could be with people that might be more encouraging to myself.

[04:44]

This is a new mic for me, actually. So I said I was disappointed. Disappointed is a kind of special word. Sometimes it has, well, I think lots of times it has a negative implication. But actually, it wasn't a bad thing. It was an opportunity, actually. It was an opening gate for me. Maybe even, rather than saying that I was disappointed, maybe what I'll say was that the strategies of happiness that I'd pursued didn't seem sufficient. So I came up and I walked into the Zen Center. And I found out here at the Zen Center that

[06:06]

the practice of Buddhism is like a great ocean. It accepted me, and it accepted all the wildly variant strangers that I saw around me who became friends. All of us were allowed in. And I realized that, and this is not just true of Buddhism, but in special, but I'm talking about Buddhism, so I'm going to say Buddhism is a practice that includes everyone. It doesn't turn anybody away. You know, once I started to practice, I discovered that there were lots of particular teachings There were things like the Four Noble Truths, the Six Paramitas, the Five Skandas, things that I didn't know about and I made a modest effort to learn what they meant, because I realized that in my identification as a Buddhist that I had a fundamental flaw, which is that I was illiterate in the teachings.

[07:27]

I hadn't been surrounded by them as I grew up. I knew more about Christianity than I did about Buddhism, so I had to remedy that. And one way was to come to these talks. Another way was to take a class. I encourage people, those of you who are interested in Zen practice, to sign up and take a class sometime. It's a way to learn about Buddhism. So each of us in this room has our own DNA. our own history, or maybe our own her story. And for some of you, you might have your own special moment that brought you here, or your own special reason that brought you back.

[08:36]

I think that one of the things that kept me at Zen practice was that I didn't understand it. It seemed so potentially transformative, and at the same time it was so modest. Just going downstairs and sitting in the Zendo, or trying to be mindful in my life, or trying to live ethically. There's a whole bunch of different reasons where people come to practice, and I don't think any of them are particularly better than another one. It's important though that you find your reason. You'll even maybe be able to have your little story in your heart.

[09:49]

Well, this is why I'm here. This is why I do this. And then fill in the blank. And of course it's complicated. For every 100 people that start off practicing, 120 give up. It's like falling in love. You fall in love and then you realize what you're stuck with. A while ago, some time ago, I was reading a magazine that had a cartoon in it. And the cartoon was of a little kid. It was with his mother. And in the cartoon, there was like a Ferris wheel.

[10:50]

It was like maybe an amusement park. It was a Ferris wheel and a roller coaster sort of sketched in the distance. And in the sky, there were fireworks, little kablooms going off. And the boy said to his mom, I'm bored. I'm bored. Another way of saying this was provided to us by our first Zen ancestor, Shakyamuni Buddha, who noticed this kind of boredom, noticed this kind of disappointment. He gave a name to it. He called it the first noble truth. Things change, and it doesn't necessarily make us happier. Another way of understanding this first noble truth is that when we look for our happiness in the things that we get, in the toys that we have, in the conditioned events of our life, and what's not conditioned, then we tend to become disappointed.

[12:12]

This is, I'll say, right now, for this morning. I'll say this is the truth of dukkha, impermanence. This is acknowledging how we can be at the circus with elephants juggling beach balls and still be bored. And being bored, or being, well I'll say, being bored is actually the ground of spiritual development. It's not an accident that practice retreats are structured in a way that you get up in the morning, go sit and face the wall, don't talk to the person beside you, have a meal, take a short break, return, sit and face the wall, and don't talk to the person beside you. They're actually on some level kind of boring. Nothing happens, and then nothing happens for seven days in a row.

[13:18]

But of course, Things happen. The tomato cashew soup is especially delicious at lunch, where the talk is boring or not. But mostly what happens is we're stuck with ourself. We see ourselves. We try to entertain ourselves. And in the process of that, sitting in a retreat, facing the wall and facing the tedium of minutes stretching into hours, we at some point maybe give up on entertaining ourselves and start simply just to be there. Which, strangely, is actually a very entertaining way to do it. And then you have to kind of give that up too. And as they say in Zen sometimes, take the backwards step.

[14:22]

Take the backwards step. This backward step is one way we might blossom and open our heart. This backward step can be like, to quote Japanese ancestor Dogen, like a hammer striking emptiness. Reverberation shakes us to our core. In the boredom of sitting with ourself and not talking, there can be a sort of space of radical boredom that opens us up to the recognition that everything is actually interesting.

[15:38]

Nothing is boring. Boring is your fault. It's not the nature of the moment that it is boring. Every little thing. I think that's one of the important teachings of Zen, which is that every little thing expresses who we are. That's one of the reasons why, in some ways, Zen practice can have a reputation of a lot of emphasis on form and ceremony. And there's a reason, because it's true. There is. a fair bit of emphasis on those sorts of things. When you step into the zendo, there is an instruction which foot you lead with. When we walk in the zendo, there's an instruction about how we hold our hands. We don't just swing them freely, we hold them in a special way. The reason for this, I believe, is that because everything counts.

[16:51]

And in order to encourage us to be mindful in those special sacred spaces that we share as a temple, there's a protocol. Now, this doesn't appeal to everybody, but for those who it does, it's pretty good. Sometimes I have people, I have friends, and I think that they're interesting. That's an interesting person. And I think that one of the intuitions I have about those individuals that I think are interesting is that they're not bored. Even though their life might be very simple. We have a choice all the time.

[18:04]

Nobody even has to sit through the rest of this lecture. You can get up and leave. Or we can walk out the door and go to the right or to the left. Or go to the airport. We have so many choices we have. And one of the things that's amazing is that we seem to continually choose to suffer. To make choices that diminish instead of expand us. And I say this about you guys out there because I think about it, this is for myself as well. I say this about myself. I tell you all, well, who am I? I'm someone who's been disappointed in my life. I've been disappointed, the classic, in that I didn't get what I wanted, and that was disappointing. But even more importantly, I've been disappointed by getting what I wanted and realizing I still felt some lack.

[19:17]

There's no end to getting what you want, the accumulation of it. It's not always clear, in fact, what's helpful, what's a hindrance. Some of the most difficult circumstances of my life, things that I would never have really chosen to happen, I can see afterwards that without that happening, where I am right now maybe wouldn't have been possible. And I don't say this because where I am right now is like such a glorious place. But still, here I am. You know, in some sort of, I don't know why this is so, but we're always improving the chants at the Zen Center.

[20:20]

Like for instance, we used to have a meal chant that I thought was beautiful. There was a line that, may we exist in muddy water with purity like a lotus. That kind of touched me. I got the metaphor. Now, these days it says, abiding in this ephemeral world like a lotus in muddy water. And then it goes on to say, the mind is pure and goes beyond. Thus we bow to Buddha. So I say to all of you and to myself, We need to exist in the muddy waters of our life and blossom like a lotus. Lotuses don't grow outside of mud. And in our Zen practice, we don't just focus on those things that are obviously sacred.

[21:21]

obviously overtly spiritual. I mean, you know, sometimes we do, but that's not the whole story. We practice Buddhism, I practice myself, I practice Buddhism, not to kind of invent myself, but to realize myself. to realize the world that's already around me, which is a really beautiful, beautiful world. And in the process of this, perhaps, the kind of fog of our self-importance or our self-centeredness, well, maybe the fog will lift a bit. And as important as it is to do things like

[22:26]

go to the meditation hall and practice Zazen. The fact remains that the real test of our life is actually when we get up and walk away from the Buddha hall or the Zendo and walk into our life. Sitting Zazen, having the chance to practice meditation is a gift that Zen students get. or the humans get, so that they can rest in ease. And in fact, Malcolm Gladwell wrote this essay, at least in one of his books, about how people become expert. I think he... I'm sure he didn't have a stopwatch going, but he came up with this theory that it takes 10,000 hours of practice to become really good at something. And I think that if you're going to practice Buddhism, I think you need to get your 10,000 hours on the cushion.

[23:35]

But also, well, we need to get our 10,000 hours on the cushion so that we can learn who we are when we're really bored. Just sitting there. Who is it that comes up? Who is it that comes up when we can't escape? Many years ago, in a land far away, in China, during the Tang Dynasty at a time that sometimes, and I almost think this is almost like the kiss of death to say this, but the golden age of Zen, which it was a very special formative moment in history when many of the Dharma teachers that we talk about these days lived together and lived within some proximity.

[24:53]

of time and space. So many years ago, there was a famous Zen master named Joshu, or I think the Chinese pronunciation is at the name, but I'll just call him the Japanese, Joshu. And a young student of Zen arrived on Saturday morning for this Saturday morning talk. or whatever the equivalent thing was, and approached Joshu and said, I've just entered, I've just arrived at the monastery. Please teach me about the Dharma. And Zhao Zhou said, have you eaten your porridge? He answered, yes, I have. And then the teacher said, well then go wash your bowl. He taught him about the Dharma.

[25:56]

Now, what makes this story gives it a little extra dimension for me is because in the historic text that recounts this anecdote, this exchange, it then says the young student woke up at hearing those words. When he heard those words, he woke up. What does it mean, he woke up? Such a simple instruction. I just said it to you. How many in this room woke up when you heard that? Welcome to the club. But I think in order to wake up, you have to have the pump primed. You have to have your... 10,000 hours, and maybe those 10,000 hours even came in some previous mysterious circumstance of karma.

[27:00]

Who knows? On another occasion, this very great Zen teacher, Joshu, he entered the Dharma Hall, like here I am in the Dharma Hall, and he gave a talk. A shorter talk, he said. A metal Buddha does not withstand the furnace. A wooden Buddha does not withstand the fire. A mud Buddha does not withstand water. Know that the genuine Buddha sits within you. metal Buddha does not withstand the furnace. A wooden Buddha does not withstand the fire. A mud Buddha does not withstand water.

[28:03]

Know that the genuine Buddha sits within you. We might come to practice with expecting fireworks or some sort of glorious awareness. or some settled certainty. But our modern life is full of things like car insurance and cell phone bills. And after dinner, yes, we have a special opportunity. We can go and wash the dishes. And while we're washing the dishes, while I and you wash the dishes. I hope we can all remember that the genuine Buddha is within us. It's a lovely Buddha on the altar there, but the genuine Buddha is within us, is within our heart, is who we are.

[29:08]

So this world, the world we live in is what it is. The world we live in is many things. It's what we make of it. It's the field of our practice. The field of our delusion and awakening. And the practice of Buddhism is a really great ocean. An ocean of awakening that includes everybody. We can all, I think it must be a saltwater ocean because we can float on it. We don't sink. The practice of Buddhism is a great saltwater ocean that accepts everyone without reservations, limitations. I said, we can float in it. We won't sink. But that's not exactly true.

[30:18]

Because it actually is possible to sink, even in the ocean. So we have to make some effort. But that's a natural thing that we want to do. Anyway, none of us want to sink. We'd like to rise. Where did that come from? It just rose up. This world we live in, what a beautiful place it is. It's a wonderful thing to be alive, and I appreciate seeing all of you here today. Thank you. 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.

[31:24]

Your financial support helps us to continue to offer the Dharma, For more information, please visit sfcc.org and click Giving. May we all fully enjoy the Dharma.

[31:38]

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