This podcast is offered by the San Francisco Zen Center on the web at www.sfcc.org. Our public programs are made possible by donations from people like you. Good morning. Good morning. I'd like to introduce our speaker today, Sojin Mel Weitzman. Our abbot, Ed Sadezan, is quoting during this practice period of Suzuki Roshi's teachings. And so he invited some old friends who practiced with Suzuki Roshi to give Dharma talks. And Mel is one of Suzuki Roshi's earliest disciples. He founded Berkeley Sun Center at Suzuki Roshi's request. and has been the abbot there for many years, and was abbot at San Francisco Zone Center from 1988 to 1997.

[01:07]

So he's been a very important part of our lives. Thanks very much. Thank you for that nice introduction. Well, today I want to talk about, when I... when I give a lecture where there's such a diversity of people, old students, it's not audible? Maybe it's... How's that? It's all mixed up with my hearing aids. Exactly. Exactly. I could just stand here. Yeah. Try the other side. No, you've got one there, too. It is? Okay. How's that? How's that? Anyway, can you hear me?

[02:11]

He says yes, and you say no. Being in the front is always good. I recommend that people, if they can't hear very well, to come up front. the older students have a lot of experience and maybe they don't want to hear what I have to say. The younger students, you know, and the middling students. So, how to prepare a talk for such a diverse group of people, I've come up with the six prajna paramitas. It seems to be okay. Yeah, it seems to be okay. I'll just keep talking loud. So every day after Zazen, we chant Prajnaparamita Hridaya Sutra. We call it, as you know, the Heart Sutra, the heart of practice, the heart of understanding.

[03:17]

It's P-R-A-J-N-A, so we say prajna. But one time I had an old Indian man come to the zendo. And he said, oh, it's so wonderful that you're doing this. It was amazing to him that we had a zendo. And he said, but when you say, it's not prajna, it's prajna. And I said, oh, yeah, no, no, prajna. No, no. So we went through this for a while. So I always, in my pidgin Indian, I say prajna. And so that's the way I pronounce it. So every day we chant a prajna, paramita, rudaya sutra, the heart sutra. The sutra that goes beyond. our understanding, the wisdom that goes beyond our understanding.

[04:24]

Usually, we say, when we talk about prajnaparamita, when we talk about the six paramitas, which I will enumerate, we usually just say, the six paramitas. But actually, it's the six prajna paramitas. Because prajna is at the basis of all the paramitas. Paramita means wisdom. Prajna, paramita. Sometimes it's called perfection of wisdom sutra, or perfection of wisdom paramitas. But prajna is the important part. Otherwise, it's just... becomes a dualistic way of delineating our behavior.

[05:27]

So the Prajnaparamita Sutra is not just an intellectual study, although there are many intellectual studies about the Prajnaparamita which are very interesting. And they explain certain aspects in detail. But basically... the prajnaparamita is a practice. When we chant the sutra after zazen, it's because it reminds us of what our practice is. So the characteristics of the prajnaparamita sutra practice is epitomized by what we call the six paramitas. Sometimes we count ten, but I'm only going to talk about six because that's usual. The first one is generosity, dana, giving.

[06:30]

The second one is behavior, precepts, what I call noble bearing, noble activity, like Buddha's activity. The third one is virya, which is, it could be the fourth, but I'll call it the third, is effort or endeavor or enthusiasm, I call it. The fourth one is patience, not waiting for anything. You see, we have to understand that what makes the prajna paramita's prajna is non-duality. So the Heart Sutra is talking about the wisdom of non-duality or the oneness of duality.

[07:33]

So patience is not waiting for anything. We usually think it is. Oh yes, I'm waiting. No. It's just being, totally being yourself on moment to moment. The fourth one is sometimes called meditation or samadhi. I'll explain that as we go along. And the sixth one is prajna itself. Wisdom, which is beyond our understanding. The wisdom of a big mind. So, to begin with... We usually think of dhana as contributions. Many Zen centers exist on dhana of the members or wealthy people to contribute to the Sangha welfare support.

[08:40]

But actually dhana means totally giving yourself. giving goods, giving material things, but also giving, not withholding spiritual understanding, the dharma, not withholding the dharma and not withholding gifts. But true dhana means totally giving yourself, letting go of everything. This is the basis of practice. Dhana is the basis of practice. What Practice, we say there's no particular gaining mind in practice. Suzuki Roshi, one of his main subjects was no gaining. We're not accumulating. We live in a society called accumulation. But our practice goes not against accumulation,

[09:46]

but not to be caught by accumulation. So, letting go is the practice of Zen. Moment by moment, letting go. Moment by moment. It's not detachment. It's non-attachment. Non-attachment is not the same as... Detachment. Detachment means to be separated from. This is the old way of thinking. And this is what the Heart Sutra criticizes. Heart Sutra criticizes detachment. Because in the old days, in the beginning, there were many monks who felt that they had to be detached from life in order to experience nirvana. And nirvana was the escape from life, actually. But the Mahayana understood in a different way that it's not like you escape from life.

[10:56]

It's that you let life pass through you without being caught by the events of life. So that you can use life and not be used by it. Even though, when we let go, life uses us. Big mind. Suzuki Roshi always talked about big mind and small mind. Big mind is our fundamental nature, which is epitomized as prajna. Small mind is our thinking mind, our individuality, our individual, what we call our self or our ego. So small mind... So sometimes we look at the difference between big mind and small mind, and so people often think that in order to attain big mind, we have to let go of small mind.

[11:57]

But small mind is the way big mind expresses itself. So, you know, we divide the world into dualities, good and bad, right and wrong, this and that. Everything has its opposite. And we live in the world of opposites. Big mind is the world of the reconciliation of opposites or the inclusion of opposites. This is called non-duality. This is prajna. Prajna is the wisdom of the oneness of duality. So although there is duality, there's also not inexplicably

[13:04]

can be reconciled. We live in a world where we're always dividing. Discrimination means to divide. So we live in a discriminating world and our minds are always discriminating. Our minds are, oh, this is an echo or something. Our minds are always dividing. And when you look at our world, our world is mostly divisions. Everybody's fighting everybody else. So how do we bring the world together? How do we bring our own world together? We can't bring the world together unless we understand what oneness is. So this is our great challenge. Great challenge of today. As of any day. There will always be war. There will always be peace. I'm sorry. So we have to work for peace. But the more we work for peace,

[14:12]

the more there's war. Because war and peace produce each other. Opposites produce each other. Good produces bad. Bad produces good. If there was no bad, everything would be good. If there was no good, everything would be bad. But it's not like that. It's a mixed bag. So, how do we bring it all together? How do we let go of of our opinions. You know, greed, ill will, and delusion are the coverings. The world is ruled by greed, it's ruled by ill will, and it's ruled by delusion. So, it's an uphill thing, but... we have to reconcile that in ourselves before we can reconcile it with the world.

[15:14]

That's what's called practice. So practice is letting go. Complete generosity. If everybody was giving totally away everything, there wouldn't be any problem. I mean, the problems would not be what they are. So generosity is like totally giving yourself to whatever it is that you're doing. That's our practice. When I was practicing with Suzuki Roshi, he was always talking about just letting go. Letting go. He would say, I remember in the middle of a seshin one day, he said, you people don't understand how selfish you are. And I thought, that's an interesting thing to say during Sashin. We're all sitting there in our struggles.

[16:17]

You do not understand how selfish you are. And I thought, well, maybe he means self-centered. He did mean self-centered because we all are self-centered. So how can we help not being self-centered? Well, we step over and become Buddha-centric instead of self-centric or eccentric. Buddha-centric. So we are half Buddha and half ordinary. He said, I know you don't realize or believe necessarily that you are Buddha as well as your ordinary person. And then we think, well, gosh, I'm not, you know... good person. I'm just me, you know. I make all my mistakes and I have my delusions and my greed and my ill will and how can I be Buddha? But he said, we are Buddha, half Buddha.

[17:22]

Half and half is kind of like, you know, just arbitrary division. Could be 10 and 80 or something like that. 80%, 99% ordinary and 1% Buddha. But he said, no, you are all Buddha. Every one of you is Buddha. But because you cling to self, it's not revealed. Your true nature is not revealed. So zazen is to resume our true nature, to let go and offer ourself. What zazen is for me means sitting up straight, Taking the correct posture and letting go. Abandoning yourself to the universe without any judgment. It's not good.

[18:25]

It's not bad. It's not right. It's not wrong. All the stuff that comes up in our mind, which is our dreams, is gone. We don't pay any attention to it. We just let ourselves be... We just offer ourselves completely with no reserve, no bridges behind us. It's just, this is it. That's complete giving. Giving means letting go or giving up. And letting big mind reveal itself. Some big minds call Buddha nature, Dharmakaya. There are many names for it, of course. But big mind, I like that. Self-nature. Essence of mind. All these terms. So these are not just abstractions or lofty thoughts.

[19:32]

They're actual practice. So one way to practice prajna is Paramita, is to completely offer yourself to the universe. This is the practice of no self. No self doesn't mean that there's no you. It's a kind of, we have this kind of quandary, like, well, if there's no self, which is one of the tenets of Buddhism, then what about me? It's a great koan, the koan of No self. Well, if there is a self, how come you say there's no self? Well, the self is changing moment to moment. There's no substantial, enduring self. There's only the self that appears moment by moment, which is not substantial. There's no inherent existence.

[20:35]

So, when we say no self, It's the no-self of the self. And it's the self of the no-self. If you say there's no self, ha-ha, what about this? And if you say there is a self, well, what happened? I was there a minute ago, and I'm not there anymore. The next paramita, number two, is what we call precepts, behavior. Living by, we say living by vow instead of living by karma.

[21:39]

Living by vow means an intentional life of practice. Living by karma means allowing ourself to be fooled by the circumstances around us. Instead of... Karma means volitional action. That's basically what it means. And then there's the fruit of volitional action, which is called the result. Hmm. So we act in certain ways caught by attractions, coming attractions. And if we do something once, we experience that. And then if we're still curious, we do it again. And then we can decide, well, do I want to continue doing this or not?

[22:43]

The third time... means that you're creating karma. Because once you do something three times, basically, you can't help doing it more over and over again. So we get caught in our karma, in our karmic activities, our relational activities, and then the karma is driving us instead of us being in control of our lives. So people think they're in control of their lives, but they're not, because they don't have it. We don't have an intention to be free from karma. So in order to be free from karma, the Buddhists created the Vinaya, which is 250 rules for monks, rules of behavior, and 300 for nuns. I'm not going to talk about that.

[23:46]

But in Japan, the number of rules of behavior was reduced. So the outcome is we have 16 precepts. The Buddha, Dharma, Sangha are the first three precepts. The... Then there are the three pure precepts and the ten clear-minded or prohibitoric precepts. I'm not going to go through that. So those are rules of behavior which the monks and sometimes the lay people adhered to in order to practice without being caught by karma. So these are rules of behavior. Suzuki Roshi adhered to... What his understanding of precepts was, yes, 16 precepts, and we should understand those and study them, but precepts don't come from outside.

[24:53]

Rules of behavior come from outside, but real precepts come from inside. So our precepts should be responding to what we realize is the true reality behavior of an enlightened person. How to behave in an enlightened way. So, Suzuki Roshi's understanding of how to practice in an enlightened way was to base your life on the practice of zazen. In zazen, you're not creating karma in the usual sense. You're adhering to all the rules of behavior. You're not doing anything bad or wrong. Well, you know, you're captured, but you're in jail, basically. But how you find your freedom in zazen, in this most, you know, zazen becomes our teacher.

[26:01]

This was Suzuki Roshi's understanding. We have various teachers and we have various teachings He said, practicing the Dharma is not like putting something into the refrigerator to keep it. And then when you want to use it, you take it out of the refrigerator. That looks like the Dharma, but it's not. The Dharma is something that is happening all the time, moment by moment. And you can't, if you're actually practicing, your experience tells you what is right and what's wrong, what's good and what's bad. So we know what the precepts are, but if you practice them by rote, it's not the same as practicing the spirit. It's like the difference between the letter of the law and the spirit of the law.

[27:09]

You know what the letter of the law is, but your actual practice is moment by moment the spirit of the law. So how you behave in a way that is not harmful to people and yourself and is not dualistic, that's the prajna of that precept, of that, the prajna of behavior. You have to find the truth of each moment's activity. So that's our practice. We have to be very careful about how we act and how we relate to everything around us, not just people. So, how to be very careful

[28:13]

with things. When we moved into this building, usually a zendo is on top if you have more than one floor. And the kitchen or the dining room would be below. But here, it was not possible to do that. So we put the dining room on top and the zendo under the dining room. Couldn't be able to But then he talked about moving chairs. He says, when you lift a chair, you should respect the chair. So you pick the chair up and put it down. You don't drag it across the floor. When you eat a table as a table, you should respect the table as a table. You don't sit on the table. You eat off the table. It's just like in the zendo.

[29:14]

the board in front of the tatamis is called the meal board. Buddha's tongue, it's called. Don't be careful you don't step on Buddha's tongue, right? So we have certain rules that help us to be aware of our behavior. So instead of talking about precepts, we're aware of our behavior. So... I remember when I first came to Zen Center, everybody was bowing to the cushion. They were bowing to everything, bowing to the gamasio. We didn't have gamasio in those days. But I thought this is a little excessive. But actually, bowing is bringing the two sides together. This is good. This is bad. This is right. This is wrong. And we put them all together. So we do that continuously.

[30:16]

That's our continuous non-dual practice. Bringing the two sides together. This is Buddha, Bodhisattvas, Arhats, Prachekha Buddhas, and Ashurath, known there, little angels. This is greed, hate, delusion, and so forth. And when we bring our palms together, it's all one. And so this is how we practice behavior. We're always bowing, even though you're not bowing. Even though your hands are at your sides, you have the same understanding in all of our activity.

[31:18]

That's practice. Then there's patience. As I said, patience is not waiting for anything. Although we think that it is. This morning I came from Berkeley and I wanted to be here in time. But you know, When you come up from the BART, and you're standing in the middle of Market Street, all these buses and trains are coming, and you want a six or a seven to get to the center. Oh, there's another train. Oh, is that the right one? The other bus is a nine that goes behind you. And then you're getting worried, you know, oh my God, you know, will I get there in time, blah, blah, blah. That's impatience, right? But patience actually is, I know that that bus will come.

[32:22]

But even if it doesn't, it's okay. I'm here. This is where I am. How can I just be right here without worrying about whether the bus is coming or worrying about whether I'll be here in time? this is treat patients without being worried about patients. Sometimes I cook for the, during session, I'll do the cooking for the community one day. And when I do the cooking, it's supposed to get out on time so that the servers come in and get it. And then I tell myself what time it's going to be. What time should I be done? And then I put that away, I forget about it. And there's something about knowing that and knowing what the pace is, that everything comes out just right. And that's called trust. Trust in knowing that if you let go of yourself, which is true patience, everything turns out, everything works out, even though it looks like it's not going to.

[33:33]

So I've learned that over and over again. Suzuki Roshi called our Sashin, great patience. This is great patience. And what you learn in Sashin, what Buddha teaches us in Sashin, is just be as still as possible and not think about the future or the past. And just live moment by moment, one breath at a time. And so there's nothing to worry about. It's called dying on the cushion. Dying and birth and death are the two sides of life. So birth and death is happening on each moment. What we learn is that each breath, inhaling, exhaling,

[34:34]

inspiration, expiration is one complete life cycle. That's one life cycle. And we do this over and over. And we don't even do it. We realize that Buddha nature is doing all this. And all we have to do is cooperate. So when the self is cooperating. There's no self because it's all one thing. That's true no self. You can't get rid of anything. It's just that you cooperate with your higher self, your bigger self. And then it's all one piece. Then there's virya, which I think comes from

[35:37]

You know, a lot of Sanskrit is, in our language, virility, which is kind of a male thing, but it's extended to everyone. It means energy, effort, or effort or energy. Viral, I think, is an option to that. Viral means uncontrolled energy. something went viral, right? So practice is to channel our energy, channel our effort, channel our enthusiasm for practice. We talk about desire, as if desire was something bad. You know, in Buddhism, when we... Read about desire really sounds like it's a bad thing, but actually desire is the most important thing.

[36:42]

Without desire, there's no life. Life is desire. But the problem with desire is that it gets caught by karma. So when we channel our effort, our energy, our enthusiasm into practice, it's called way-seeking mind. and way-seeking mind is a... We're always not looking for the correct way, but channeling our energy into the practice. When we channel our energy into the practice, enthusiasm arises, and the practice drives enthusiasm, and enthusiasm drives the practice. When I first started sitting, I had a lot of enthusiasm.

[37:50]

But my enthusiasm was met by the problems of sitting zazen. So... because I had a lot of pain when I was first sitting, as probably some of you have had. Maybe. And it was very difficult for a long time. I thought it was a long time, but actually, when you're practicing for six months, you think it's a long time. But then I started sitting in full lotus, and that was not as hard as I thought. But still, I had a lot of hard time. And one time, I asked Suzuki, at the end of Sashin, I put my leg down at the last minute before the end, and I thought, why did I do that? But I couldn't help it, I thought.

[38:53]

Of course I could help it, but I thought I couldn't. And so, we used to fly a lot of Suzuki Roshi's office, from the Zendo to his office, and... He would bow to everybody, and I was the last one. And I said, you think I should continue to practice? I was kind of probing him a little bit. You think I should continue to practice? He said, what do you mean? It's not difficult enough for you? That was my first Kensho. It was not my first enlightenment experience. because my first enlightenment experience was the moment I sat down for Zazen. We think that, we'd like to think that enlightenment is the end of some conclusion, but actually enlightenment is the beginning. What brings us to practice is enlightenment.

[39:56]

Otherwise, why would we do this? We do it out of curiosity, right? But as soon as we start to practice, it's enlightenment which brings us to practice. But we don't recognize that. We don't realize it. It's like in the Lotus Sutra, there's this story about the prodigal son who goes away and travels the world around. He comes back and he doesn't even know he's come back to his father's place. But he has nothing. He's dejected. And then his father recognizes him and seduces him into taking part and gives him a job shoveling manure in the stables until finally he brings him up and reveals.

[41:00]

That is his father, right? But it's something like that. It's something like you don't know. And of course the son had no idea that this was his father or his father's big property. He was the most wealthy guy. So coming to practice is something like that because you don't realize that you're in the realm of enlightenment. It's just hard practice. It's hard to do this. I never thought about enlightenment. I never... I kind of undervalued it, I think. I always kind of undervalued it as some kind of a gimmick. I was only interested in the practice. And I think that was my advantage. But I realized that enlightenment, Suzuki wrote Jesus to say, He used to feel that enlightenment was overrated.

[42:01]

It's a way it's presented. Not enlightenment itself, of course. When we appreciate the most mundane parts of our activity, it truly gives ourselves to lie on The lion addresses every moment's activity in the same way. If it's a mouse, it's the same as if it's a deer. This is the enlightened activity of the lion. That's why Buddha's dharma is called the lion's roar. Enlightenment is in our activity. It's in our enthusiasm and in our daily practice.

[43:08]

We say, Gyoji. Gyoji means continuous practice. Enlightenment lights up our continuous practice. One moment of practice is a moment of enlightenment, but you may not realize it. Dogen says, I may realize it, and some may not. It's okay if you don't, as long as you really appreciate your practice. So, and Dogen says, enlightenment is the essence of practice. Practice is the activity of enlightenment. You don't have to wait for something. When you have a big experience, that's... Great. That's a nice big experience. You have a little experience? That's great. But a little experience can be a big experience. When a little teeny experience becomes a big experience, that's great.

[44:11]

That's called waking up. And there are many, many examples of that. The fifth one, fourth one, fifth one, The fifth prajuparamita is called meditation. Samadhi. Samadhi is the essence of meditation. We don't call it, for convenience's sake, we call zazen meditation. But it's just the practice of samadhi. Samadhi means something like to be at one with. total activity of the universe without self-centeredness. It's the norm. We think of it as something extravagant, but it's actually just the norm.

[45:14]

Problem is, what is the norm? Shakyamuni Buddha said, All I teach is the norm. And yet there are thousands and thousands of books, practices and so forth. And it looks different, the norm looks different in monastic life than it does in worldly life. Because the goals are different. Zazen is called samadhi. because it's simply being one with the universe. Our activity, it's just being one with the universe. It's nothing else. Because there's nothing else, there are no borders. There's no discrimination. So zazen is non-discriminating mind. Non-discriminating mind is samadhi, because non-discriminating means that there's no particularization.

[46:23]

As soon as we start particularizing, then ordinary life starts. But that's also samadhi. So there's the samadhi of zazen and the samadhi of daily activity. When our daily activity is selfless, not meaning, you know, a self is a construction. So we all have our constructions. Firemen, policemen, bureaucrat, whatever. We all have our constructions called our life. But they're constructions. When our constructions are open and not dominating, then we have samadhi. Because samadhi is simply our true nature expressing itself without hindrance, without thought coverings, without opinions.

[47:27]

So there are many samadhis, you know, that have been, we'd say that Jiju, you, zamai, samai means samadhi, Jiju means the samadhi, the self, fulfilling or self-joyous samadhi, which is associated with zazen. And then there's tajuyu samai, which is which is included in jijuyu samadhi, which is offering the wisdom to others. So it's not you can't keep the joy to yourself. You have to help others to bring out the joy in their own life. Joy is something that is a very deep river. It's not necessarily visible.

[48:40]

But it's that which is not moved in any circumstance. So samadhi is called imperturbability. Nothing can touch it or reach it. It's the innermost sanctum of your being. can't be turned over. And if it's turned over, it sits back up. In Japan, they have the Daruma doll. I don't know if you've seen that. But the true Daruma doll doesn't have a bottom, I mean a flat bottom. So you turn it over, but it just sits back up. Flexibility is the key to life. Definitely. flexibility. Zazen, of course, is the immovable position because it's a triangle. It's hard to push you over. But in Zazen, although it looks like we're stiff and rigid, we're actually loose and free.

[49:49]

Zazen is the posture which is the most confined posture. And then the trick is to find your total freedom of within that most confined posture. And when you do that, samadhi arises because there's no hindrance. So prajna, number six, is the wisdom of samadhi. The sixth ancestor says, samadhi is like a lamp, and prajna is like the light. The lamp and its light. They're not really two things. So in order to talk about prajna, it's hard to talk about prajna because it doesn't have any shape or form.

[50:53]

But it permeates our whole life. It's the actor in our life. So when we establish samadhi, prajna just arises as a light. So when we sit zasin, we are vehicles of light. This should be the goal of a Zen student, to be a vehicle for light. to allow light to just, a prajna to shine forth, that's more influential than all the help you can give to people. We can help people in various ways. Sometimes it looks like we're not doing anything, but bringing that light of prajna into the world is, I think, the most valuable thing.

[51:59]

But that's just my opinion. So these are some aspects of the six paramitas. And the practice of Prajnaparamita, the practice of the Heart Sutra, the Heart Sutra is not just a intellectual study. It's a vehicle for our actual practice. And we should think about it that way. And these six, of course, are basic elements to think about. Usually, When I give a talk, I ask for questions.

[53:01]

But if you want to ask questions, we'll have questions in the dining room after tea. 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. 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.

[53:41]

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