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. So I thought I'd begin this morning by giving you a little taste of what we're dealing with here at Green Gulch Farm. This passage is from a fascicle of the Shobogenzo, which is basically a collection of lectures that were given by Dogen Zenji, the founder of our particular tradition of Soto Zen, Japanese Zen master from the 13th century. Shobogenzo means the treasury of the true Dharma eye. And this particular fascicle is called Shinjin Gakudo, body and mind, study of the way. Everyday mind opens the gate of the inner chamber.

[01:06]

Because thousands of gates and myriads of doors open and close all at once, it is everyday mind. Now this boundless sky and entire earth are like unrecognized words, a voice from the deep. Words are all inclusive Mind is all-inclusive. Things are all-inclusive. If you arouse the thought of enlightenment, you will move forward on the way of enlightenment. The moment is already here. Do not doubt it in the least. If you should doubt it, this too is nothing but everyday mind. So the other morning, while I was ironing in my kitchen, I decided to turn on some music to enhance the already pleasant experience I was having of taking the wrinkles out of my clothes.

[02:18]

So I started with some Leonard Cohen, you know, kind of my all-time favorite genre of music, which is, I think of as sort of a depressive neo-class, depressive neo-mystical. Anyway, you know what I mean. I love it. So that was going well and then somehow I tried to turn up the volume and instead I pushed some button on the remote device and this very strange voice came out over the loudspeaker And it took me a little while to realize that it was my voice. And it was from a lecture that I had given maybe 25 or 30 years ago when I first began doing some public speaking here at Green Gulch. So I don't know how I got in with my iTunes.

[03:21]

I mean, it's really strange. But the first impulse I had was to turn it off. Because I could tell by that voice that that woman was very nervous. And so I thought, well, maybe I'll just listen for a little while to see what she had to say. And pretty soon, myself then made myself now start to cry. And I think it's because I could hear how terribly sincere and vulnerable and scared I was. And still I went on talking about this thing, which is not a thing, that I love with all my heart and still do, the teaching of the gentle Buddhas.

[04:23]

So that was a happy thing. The conjoining of my former self with my present self. I don't know how many of you have seen Interstellar, but that happens in the movie. He runs into himself. It's just particle physics. What was I going to say here? Yeah, so that wasn't the end of it. The next thing that happened was also mysterious because after my talk was finished, there was another talk recorded that was by Suzuki Roshi from the 1960s. So I was still ironing, so I decided to listen to that one as well. And I don't know how many of you know, but you can hear his talks if you go online, the Zen Sitter website. They're quite wonderful to actually hear him speaking, his own voice, giving those talks that we might know from Zen Mind Beginners Mind.

[05:31]

So his talk began by making some observations about how the Zen students had been moving the chairs around the room in preparation for the lecture later that morning. And what they'd been doing basically was sliding them rather noisily across the tile floor. So he said, our culture has become lazy about how we take care of each thing. Instead of respecting things, we try to use them for our own convenience and pleasure. If it's too difficult to use something or do something, eventually we either give up or we begin to fight with each other. When we respect things, we find the true life in them. When we respect plants, there we find the real life of plants and the real beauty of a flower. Love is important, but more important is respect and sincerity and big mind. And yet, until we see the big Buddha, the big mind in a small leaf, we need to make a great deal of effort.

[06:45]

How much, we don't know. For someone like me, referring to himself, a great effort. it is so much easier to see the great golden Buddha in a shrine hall. But when you see great Buddha in a small leaf, that joy may be something truly special. With big mind, pure sincerity and respect, our love could be real love. Just love by itself separated from those other aspects of our life will not work. So let's try hard to make big Buddha with our big effort. So first of all this morning I want to appreciate the big effort you all have made in coming here today. It's not easy going places as I have noticed. We have to decide among the many things where we're going to go and then we have to get dressed and get into our cars and drive some distance using gasoline.

[07:53]

We have to park. and walk, and then for those of you who came here this morning, take off our shoes, of all things, before entering the room to find your seat. So this last part is what we emphasize here in our Zen training program, finding your seat. In fact, if you all had come here a little earlier this morning, around 4.45, we would all have joined you in finding our seats together for two 40 minute periods. In between, we have about a 10 minute slow walking meditation that we do to give our legs a little rest. And in addition to our more or less daily practice, there's also times during the year, like starting next week, actually starting this afternoon,

[08:56]

at three o'clock, that many of us here will be sitting for the entire week, finding our seat for 40 minute periods. It's called sesshin. Sesshin, we do that several times a year. Sesshin comes from a word, Japanese word, that literally means touching the heart, touching the heart mind. So finding your seat while sitting is what I think of as the core accomplishment of Zen practice. And for most people it takes a while to get the hang of that. I think all of us began our sitting practice trying a lot of strategies to avoid the discomfort that comes from simply having a body. And among the strategies that I am personally familiar with are piles of cushions. wooden bench, a chair, ibuprofen, and daydreaming.

[10:03]

And then if all else fails, to stay in bed. So all of these strategies aren't terribly different from the other ways that we approach the challenges of our lives. And for Suzuki Roshi, what he noticed was this strategy that his students were employing to move the chairs quickly. and efficiently, which was to slide them along the tile floor, making a lot of noise as they did. And clearly it's a lot more difficult to pick up each chair, to carry it and then place it down quietly in another place in the room. Much more difficult and it takes a lot longer. So what's the big deal? That's the question I'm asking myself and all of you today. What's the big deal? So anyway, after I finished my ironing, I went about with the rest of my day feeling quite content.

[11:07]

And it didn't take too long, however, before this lecture by Suzuki Roshi kind of disrupted what is a rather well-strategized life of my own. In fact, it was the next day in the morning as we were setting up for our Thanksgiving feast. Each year I have the proud assignment of heading the crew that sets the tables and places the chairs and tables in a particular Thanksgiving formation for which I have a little map. So I had my crew gathered and I told them about how we were gonna do things. And I had like eight different things to be done, sorting the silver, getting the napkins, tablecloths, moving the tables and chairs. And then I began to demonstrate how to move the tables and chairs in the most efficient way, which was to slide them across the floor. But somehow I noticed, rather painfully, that I really didn't feel very good doing that.

[12:14]

It seemed very disrespectful on many levels. So I stopped the demonstration and I called the crew together and I told them about the lecture that I had heard. And then this very amazing thing happened. We began to move the tables and chairs quietly and together. And right away I felt incredible intimacy with The room and the chairs and the people and with myself. You know, my real self. The one that's not separated from people, chairs and rooms. So this is what Shakyamuni Buddha and Suzuki Roshi and Dogen Zenji have been trying to teach us all along. Words are inclusive. Mind is inclusive. Things are inclusive. And At least for that moment, I knew it.

[13:16]

I really knew it. I knew that that's how the real self, how our real self is supposed to feel. You know, intimate, connected, careful, respectful, aware, real love. Finding your seat while sitting isn't really different than finding your legs while walking or finding your voice while speaking or finding your thoughts while thinking. And although it sounds like a simple thing to do, it's not so easy. Easy is easy, like sliding chairs across the floor. Simple is difficult and precious. It's a real job. More than a real job, actually, it's a vocation.

[14:20]

It's a vocation, a way of life. One that we call Buddhist practice. You know, jobs we can get paid for by the hour. But vocations take everything we've got. There are never quick and there are never easy ways to find how to do things with all the various parts of our bodies assembled into some kind of harmonious composition. This takes a lot of time, great portion of our lives, to come into harmony with ourselves and with the environment through which we move moment by moment. It's like the violinist continuously tuning up her strings. This composition takes skills, developing skills, and it takes responsibility for others. And such a great effort to manifest our true self will invariably end up in a long and arduous journey of discovery, way-seeking journey.

[15:39]

which is the very name that my teacher gave to me many years ago when I ordained as a priest. He called me wind and stream. It's because I'm always moving. Wind and stream, way-seeking heart, way-seeking heart. And then as now, I must continuously ask, so who's got the map? Who's got the map? Here's one great teacher who does for sure, the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. Salvation is about being on the right road, not about having reached some destination. Salvation is about being on the right road, not about having reached some destination. In other words, don't ask why questions. Why me? Why now? Why bother? but rather ask how questions.

[16:44]

How do I find the road? How do I make this thing work? How do I bring salvation to the world of suffering beings? Dr. King went on to say, life's most persistent and urgent question is, what are you doing for others? So finding the right road, the right path, at first may seem just kind of like a long walk in the dark woods. But in the end, when we find it, it is so plain and so simple, it's so obvious and well lit that we can't believe it hasn't been there all along, which of course it has. And that's what it means to find your seat.

[17:45]

It's been there all along. This seat? Yeah, this seat. The one right now? Yeah, the one right now. This one here? Yeah, this one here. The one I'm in? Yeah, the one you're in. That reminds me of my very favorite Thanksgiving story that took place about five years ago. After the great feast that we have here at Green Gulch, I go to a second great feast that happens with my familial tribe over in San Rafael. And again, massive quantities of food. By the end of the day, I can't really believe I'll ever eat again. Anyway, so at that tribal meal, we each get a card to write down things that we're thankful for. It's kind of our tradition. So we all write these really sweet things like, you know, my parents, the sun, the rain, you know, being together.

[18:51]

And we all go, oh, that's so sweet. So anyway, this one year, as the gratitudes were being read, there was one card that had been written by one of the younger boys. It was about eight or nine. And the youngest children read the cards, so it even makes it more adorable. So they're reading the cards and then his card turned up and it said, I am grateful for my butt. And we all glared at him and then we laughed. But you know, I really liked that because he really cut right through it, you know. Right to the place where we sit. On our butts. In our bodies. our wonderful, amazing bodies with their hands and arms and fingers and toes and eyes and on and on and on. You know, this unearned miracle of life through which each of us has incarnated right up into this very moment.

[19:58]

And the only way we have to truly show our gratitude for this gift of life is by helping our bodies to find a way to live. How? How? By training them in a way to think, in a way to speak, and in a way to behave, we have to learn. And we need help from others who have learned. We call those teachers. So as with everything we've ever known or learned, we also have to practice. over and over and over again. And this is the practice that Suzuki Roshi was talking about in trying to teach us how to take care of chairs, shoes, cups, our rooms, our bodies, each other, our cars, our planet.

[21:02]

How? By showing to one another our sincerity, our respect, and our love. So I don't know how all of you are feeling today about the news that came from Ferguson. I do know that the people in my community are in a lot of pain. People of different races and many different nationalities who are living here together right now. In a lot of pain. Tremendous pain Once again, this unceasing pain that arises from the multitude of atrocities within human society. The burning and killing, raping, lying, stealing. And maybe worst of all, forgetting So one of the things I appreciated as I learned about Buddha's teaching was the alternative set of rules or guidelines by which we humans were being invited to live our lives.

[22:19]

Somewhat the opposite of what we usually read in the news. These rules are called precepts. Precepts means to take instruction or to train. Precepts in our tradition are basically promises that we make to one another about how we will respect and care for each other. For example, in taking precepts, I promise not to kill you, or steal from you, or lie to you, sexualize you, slander you, intoxicate you. I promise not to hate you. I promise not to withhold myself or any of my things from you. I promise not to disparage the teachings that remind me that I've made a promise to you, which I'm making again right now.

[23:20]

So when I looked up the word precept in the dictionary, it was very interesting to see that the sample sentence they use for precept was this one. Children learn far more by example than by precept. And I thought, uh-oh. That's kind of scary. Given the examples that we're showing to our children in our culture, day after day, what they learn that's called history, a series of wars, basically. The movies. Advertisements. And then there's the news. Examples of how to be sexy, well armed and rich. And then there are the toys. How many little boys now have been killed because they're carrying plastic guns?

[24:29]

Maybe dreaming themselves one day of becoming policemen or soldiers. So I think there are other things we might be showing our children of a righteous way to live their lives. I know there are, you know, many of them, and I know many of you do. We can let them see us baking bread or planting flowers, growing vegetables, petting the dog, sewing, painting, moving chairs quietly around. And at the very least, we need to know that what they are truly learning is coming from watching us, not from what we say, what we do. So although there is no ending to this story, I would like to finish talking with some words from an essay called, What is a Black Bodhisattva to Do?

[25:39]

It was written by one of the students here, whose name is Kiva. Kiva, are you somewhere here? Oh, there he is. Hi. He said I could read a portion. He actually said I could read the whole thing, but it's really long, so I told him he'd have to get his own gig. So here's Kiva, and I really recommend any of you, I'm sure if you ask him, he'll share this essay. It's quite beautifully written. This is toward the end. There is nothing to be done, nothing that can be done, and yet you can't just do nothing. The situation is irreconcilable. Life is terminal, so chop wood, carry water, and get on with it. When you sit, you sit, and nothing else. When you're preparing meals, just prepare the meal. When conversing, converse. A more streetwise way of saying it would be, play your position.

[26:41]

Things will take care of themselves sooner or later, they always do. We all suffer immensely as the long arc of history bends wearily toward justice. But that's exactly what it's doing. And I thank you, Kiva, for your hopefulness at the end there. Same to you. Once again from the great teacher, the Reverend King. We all have the drum major instinct. We all want to be important, to surpass others, to achieve distinction, and to lead the parade. And the great issue of life is to harness the drum major instinct. It's a good instinct if you don't distort it and pervert it. Don't give it up. Keep feeling the need for being important. Keep feeling the need for being first. But I want you to be first in love. I want you to be the first in moral excellence. I want you to be the first in generosity. So I really hope that we can all wake up from the bad dreams we've been having most of our lives to see how deeply we need each other and how little time remains before the revolution turns to violence again.

[28:00]

But when and if it does, I want to remind you and myself of what our good friend, Tara Tukul, told us, himself having fled the Chinese invasion of Tibet many years ago. When one of the students here asked him what to do when you're afraid, Tara Tukul paused for a moment, smiled a little, and he said, run. Thank you very much. For more information, visit sfcc.org and click Giving. May we fully enjoy the Dharma.

[28:58]

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