This podcast is offered by the San Francisco Zen Center on the web at www.sfzc.org. Our public programs are made possible by donations from people like you. So we're now at the midway point of our seven days of shooting. And I... Imagine perhaps you're feeling a little bit more settled or maybe touching maybe deeper currents. Sound. Deeper currents of our conditioning. Kind of like the sound quality here. It kind of goes up and down. At some point we settle into a particular flow and rhythm. So we're seeing the currents of our conditioning And also that which is unconditioned, the flow of that totality, touching that and resting there and getting ourselves over to it.

[01:14]

So I want to thank both Koda and Lauren for their beautiful and encouraging talks, the last two dates of Sushi. The day after tomorrow, Tim will give the talk. And then I'll give the final talk of Sushi. And before I dive into the main subject of my talk, I want to acknowledge that tomorrow we're going to have a silent day. This time around, we're only having one silent day. And as I previously mentioned, silent days are modeled after the ones that Uchiha Maroshi used to conduct. conducted at Taiji in Japan. So, as before, our schedule is going to be even more reduced than what we already have done. And so there won't be a Dharma talk. You'll have the opportunity of listening to the Kenyan wrens and the other birds in the creek.

[02:17]

They have so much to tell you about the Dharma. We won't be having chanting for morning service or any of the services, but simply prostration. So giving ourselves over to the practice in that way. And we will do the refuges and repentances and Pali refuges. So once again, consider this an opportunity to connect within deep and further the stillness in the silence that you have cultivated over the last four days of Sushin and doing so maybe reveal a more fully ever awake open presence that's within connecting to that listening to that resting in that being that

[03:19]

This morning I'd like to attempt to weave together some thoughts on the topic of choice, choiceless awareness, and free will. And my talk seems to have taken the shape, three distinct parts, a triptych of sorts. And so there's a preface, and there's the main body, and then there's a proscript of sorts. And we'll see how well they fit together or not. And for the preface, I want to offer a poem by the Zen Center alumna, Jane Hirshfield. And I expect you might be familiar with this poem. It's titled, The Tree. It is foolish to let a young redwood grow next to a house. Even in this one lifetime, you will have to choose. That great calm being this clutter of suphats and books.

[04:26]

Already the first branch tips brush at the window. Softly, calmly, immensity taps at your life. Whenever I encounter this poem, I think of the up-choo right across from the zendo. You can get some dining room dormant. It looks like it's been kind of pushing into the building, although so far there doesn't seem to have been any damage, fortunately. And now a few years back, we looked into what could be done to address the situation. And there was some concern that the tree might eventually have to be removed in order to preserve the building. And at that time, the choice was made to trim the tree in a certain way so that it wouldn't keep leaning and encroaching into the building. So they took them in such a way where the weight kind of got distributed half-side.

[05:29]

And it seems so far to be working. I haven't heard any immediate concerns. But someday, who knows, we may need to actually choose to either cut the tree back further, or take it down altogether, or something that's not so likely. Perhaps reconfigure the structure of the building in order to give way to the tree, preserve the tree, accommodate its natural growth. So I wonder what choice will we make then? But then again, maybe the choice will be made for us. Maybe the tree will just simply fall over. Or maybe a great wildfire will someday burn down both the oak tree and the dining room before we ever get to see which of them prevails in the competition for space and our affections. Even in this one lifetime, you will have to choose.

[06:37]

That great calm being this clutter of soup pots So one way to interpret the options presented here is to ask ourselves, with what do we ultimately align ourselves? With the natural world and all its insistent magnificence? Or with the messy mundane world of human affairs? And given the current state of climate chaos, it seems that a large percentage of the of humanity has already made a decision. Or perhaps the choice is one of a spiritual nature, between aligning ourselves with the great calm being of our true nature, or with the narrow clutter of conditioned thoughts, emotions, and true realities that occupy our attention and obscure our clear seeing.

[07:46]

Do we embrace the immensity of the unknown? We settle for the familiar but limited. Which do you prioritize? How do you decide? And even if we choose to sights up the choice for a while, at some point, something will come tapping out our window. Generally, perhaps. but persistently, reminding us that not to choose is still a choice. Now for the main babi at the top, the centerpiece, if you will, which focuses on the matter of picking and choosing. And I expect many of you have encountered before the opening lines of the Shinshin Ming.

[08:52]

It's a well-known poem by Seng Sang, our third Zen ancestor. And the title Shinshin Ming can be translated in a number of different ways. One most common is faith in mind or trust in mind. And the poem begins, the true way, or the ultimate way, is not difficult. Just avoid picking and choosing when you don't grasp or reject the way enlightens itself. The true way or the ultimate way is not difficult. Just avoid picking and choosing when you don't grasp or reject the way enlightens itself. So we have here the essential teaching of Buddhism. all conditioned existence is suffering. And what is the cause of suffering? Grasping and rejecting.

[09:57]

Trying to keep what you will inevitably lose and trying to eliminate what you cannot cause to go away. Either of these choices only creates difficulty for us. Maybe you think that somehow with a lot of hard work and diligence and practice, you can go beyond grasping and rejecting. How's that working out? But that karmic habit pattern of grasping and rejecting, as you probably discovered, runs really deep for us. When we sit down on our cushions and we observe our minds closely and for a long time, we realize how subtle and constant grasping and rejecting actually are. Furthermore, we see that they are basically rooted in our humanity, in our desire to live and not die.

[10:59]

And I encourage you to study that. Where does grasping and rejecting come from? Where does that impulse? My sense is fundamental survival as an organism So Buddhism teaches that at the root of human perception and consciousness, essentially all of our experience, is grasping and rejecting. So avoiding grasping and rejecting, it's not such an easy thing to do. And frankly, it might not even be very advisable, because at some point our very survival depends on it. However, we have the emptiness teachings. And the emptiness teachings of Buddhism tell us, in reality, there was never anything in the first place that you could grasp or reject. Our discriminative karmic consciousness, it's based on a fallacy.

[12:07]

It's based on the erroneous projection of separation. The truth is, things are empty of separation. Things are without boundaries. Without boundaries that it looks to us that they have. Which means, in other words, that they are inherently both ungraspable and unrejectable. If nothing has a boundary, you can't grasp it and you can't reject it. This is the enlightenment that Sang Sang is talking about in this poem. Reality is inherently luminous and free of our projections. When we see the way things really are and go beyond grasping and rejecting, just that alone is enlightenment. The peace, wisdom, and freedom that we are seeking are all right here.

[13:15]

So the true way is not difficult. Just avoid picking and choosing. When you don't grasp or reject, the way enlightens itself. Other translations of the first sentence include, the great way is not difficult. Just have no preferences. And then, the great way is effortless for those who live in choiceless awareness. All right. I like this last one, even though frankly it takes some poetic license. During this week of Sashin, as we're engaged in gathering the heart-mind through the practice of Zazen, we're endeavoring to refrain from grasping and rejecting and course in the true way. And we're doing so perhaps with varying degrees of ease and difficulty The true way can be understood as both the way of reality, of things as it is, as the Surya Rishi would say, and the path of practice followed by the Buddhas and ancestors.

[14:24]

Now you may be utilizing a number of different approaches in your meditation of the true way, including mindfulness of the breath and body. And you might also at times be engaging in the practice of Shikantasta, of just sitting, of doing nothing but sitting. The sasana of shikantaza invites a type of choiceless awareness of breath and experience, and discourages any preference for one manifestation of breath or experience over another. Once the mind has learned to rest in breathing, and develop some stability and calmness, you can then open up the field of attention to whatever is there, whatever reveals itself. So you simply sit in the middle of your experience just as it is.

[15:29]

You have no agenda regarding what it is to be mindful of. mindfulness in the sense of directing your attention. It's just the wide-open, diffused attention. And you're not for or against anything that shows up. One way this choicelessness expresses itself is as the activity of no activity or non-doing. I'm still going to remind us of sitting zazen, one is also manifesting the one earth's realm beyond karma, beyond action, beyond cause and effect. And somebody can think of Shikin Taza as a practice of infinite trust. Trust that we can be ourselves without attempting to change, fix, do, or even attain anything. Trust that when we just sit,

[16:35]

We are embodying the Buddha way, the way of awakening itself. Every single person who engages in shikinkasa, just sitting, must discover for themselves what it means to rest in bright, wakeful, open awareness. And so the attitude to sit with is one of total openness, total receptivity. We lay there discriminating, calculating, choosing mind to rest. Let it settle. Let it be quiet. And allow life to come to you. Allow the calm, the calm, the calm to come to you. without reaching out for what would resist it that you may find unpleasant.

[17:45]

This is not so difficult, is it? So Zhang Zhang tells us that the true way, the great way, the Buddha way is not difficult. It just avoids picking and choosing. grasping and rejecting. When there's no picking and choosing of experience, nor grasping and rejecting of the myriad objects that might come forth in our consciousness, then the way enlightens itself. The path itself is illuminated. Or rather I think of it as the path is self-illuminated. The way reveals itself. What a great Sashim instruction, don't you think? How many preferences have arisen or will arise for us as we sit together this week?

[18:47]

In this great moment, can you notice how many preferences are coming up? We see innumerable. And how many opportunities to hold on to them or not to enact men in some way. So you could read these opening lines as a practice instruction, but people who are like us are manifestations of current consciousness. So for people like us, the great way is not difficult if we are actually practicing, not holding or grasping onto preferences. And we find it for people who choose it. So the opening lines of trust in mind become a practice instruction for the practice of choiceless awareness. We might find a certain measure of skill and ease following this practice instruction while sitting in meditation and letting go of discriminations and prejudices over and over and simply allow things to be as they rock.

[19:59]

At some point, we need to get up from our seats and return to the world of karma, the world of activity and discrimination, of picking and choosing. What then? The minute we rise up from our meditation, see, suddenly the one true way, the path before us, bifurcates, or more likely splits into a thousand tributaries. At every moment we find ourselves standing at a crossroads, and typically one with multiple paths leading in varying directions. We can never accurately predict where each step, each decision, each fork in the road will eventually lead. Some may lead to great opportunities of happiness, others to despair, loss, and suffering. Either way, the path forward is one that will be determined and shaped by our particular karma.

[21:13]

So there is the way of non-action, or non-karma, when we are on our meditation, and then there is the way of action, or karma, beyond them. Of course, this is where the meditation qualities typically lies for us. The Buddha's teaching about karma has a lot to do with this aspect of our lives, the places where we have choice and how we make choices. In our everyday life, we do have preferences. And picking and choosing, it's really a practical thing, you know? As karmic beings, we pick and choose all the time. We make millions of decisions every day, large and small. and by which we are guided by our preferences. There's no way not to. So how are you going to live in a world and with a mind that is essentially requiring us moment after moment to discriminate, to pick and choose?

[22:17]

How do we practice with that? How do we pick and choose intentionally with wisdom and compassion? so as to reduce the production of negative chronic results. Despite the uncertainty that shrouds every decision, we still need to do the best we can. What are the choices there? And this is where mindfulness comes in. Mindfulness is the light that illuminates our path one step at a time. Mindfulness allows us to see one moment ahead in the fog of uncertainty. And the practice of mindfulness brings us to that place where we see that we have choice and we take up responsibility for our choices with a clear intention.

[23:21]

And the path of practice is about seeing and aligning with reality, with what is. and skillfully meeting the moment. So we want to be present for what is, for things as it is. But as we are present for what is, what is isn't static. What is is actually an ongoing process of change and movement, and one that's continually tapping out our window. The teaching of karma tells us that the present moment is part of a causal chain of cause and effect. There's a cause and effect, and the effect is a cause for the next thing. And it just goes on and on. It's beginningless and endless. And furthermore, we can see ourselves in this, think of it as a great stream of cause and effect. We find ourselves here, in the present moment, in that stream of cause and effect.

[24:24]

The stream of of change and impermanence. So the question is, how do we relate to this river of change and impermanence? And this, of course, is where our practice of clarity can provide clarity. And we can learn how to, again, come back to rest, to be present and mindful of what is going on in this moment. And we can do it in the midst of any activity, as you probably know. And then when we pause and we rest and we stop, we see the places, the gap, the space, where we have choice, where the moment of choice is. And if a person doesn't see that they have a choice, then there's no choice. If we live deluded, we can't see what's going on.

[25:29]

If we can't see what's going on, then we don't see that we have a choice about what we do with our lives. And the more carefully we investigate, the more sensitive we get to the reality of this present moment. And then the more we see that there's a lot of choice, in each moment about how it is that we react and respond and behave. And when the greater array of choice that we have, the places for choice that we can see, the more choice we have and the more responsibility that we can take for ourselves, our lives, and our actions. And of course, if the person sees no choice in their life, sees no place where they can make a choice and make a difference, then will most likely feel like victims of life. Victims of the sway of causes and conditions. And I often note when I fall into my kind of self-pity, woe is me, right?

[26:38]

I somehow have given up a sense of seeing where choice is possible and taking responsibility for myself in making a choice. It doesn't mean that I may like the choice, the options available, But I kind of disempower myself in those moments. And once I can kind of get out of that mind state and reclaim the power to decide, then I can once again claim my agency. And I can see then that I can actually send or affect an influence on this kind of whole causal chain of cause and effect. So again, the teaching of karma has to do with the place of choice, the choices we make. And there's a lot of subtlety and nuance that we can discover in our study of karma.

[27:44]

Now in the path of practice, the primary choice, the choice before all other choices, is to open to what is. In each moment, we can choose to either open to the way things are, to reality, or to close ourselves from it by contracting our attention. But can closing ourselves off from reality really be considered a choice? I recently read a quote by the Zen teacher Ansan Hoshin, who said, only the choice to open is a choice. Everything else is compulsion. Only the choice to open is a choice. Everything else is compulsion. In other words, everything else is just habitual volition and predispositions which drive our karma. And as we've heard before, acting out of our karmic predispositions is what makes for our character.

[28:48]

So in a manner of speaking, these predispositions, And habits make up the default settings of our personalities. I've also read that the term karma can be translated as following the momentum of tendency. Following the momentum of tendency. So we can either be led around by our karma, following the momentum of tendency and compulsion birthed by ignorance, or we can make the choice to break free. Seeing that there is a choice and breaking out of the momentum of intimacy requires, from a Buddhist perspective, that we practice with mindfulness. And if we think about it, only the practice of mindfulness is actually a choice. Everything else is delusion and compulsion. When you choose reality instead of giving it in compulsion, it might actually surprise you.

[29:52]

When you choose reality, it's not what you expect because it's not based on your expectations. It's not based on your ideas of how things should be or are going to be. The true way is not difficult. Just avoid picking and choosing. When you don't grasp or reject the way enlightens the self, when you don't grasp or reject the way enlightens itself. Again, the question is one of how do we practice with the reality that, as karmic beings, we really can't avoid picking and choosing? How do we live with ease and equanimity in the midst of picking and choosing? There are two clues we can turn to for an answer. The first clue is in the second phrase, when you don't grasp or reject the way enlightens itself. So while we can't avoid picking and choosing, we can avoid grasping and rejecting.

[30:57]

Identify what is needed. Make the choice. And then let go and see what unfolds. Perhaps it will play out fragibly. Perhaps not. Don't try to hold on to things turning out a certain way. And don't reject the way that they do turn out. Just notice... When acting on your choice, a cause, there will be a result. Then, depending on the result, you will inevitably proceed with making another choice. Trying to grasp or reject the endless stream of choices we find ourselves in will only cause suffering. We find the second clue in a poem by Shuedo in On the Shinshinming, in which he says that In one, there are many. In many, there is one. In one, there are many.

[32:00]

In many, there is one. So in other words, it's not that there are two different possibilities. Picking and choosing on the one side, and letting go, picking and choosing, or being enlightened on the other side. That's a false takana. That's itself already confusion. What we need to realize is that there is actually no such thing as enlightenment outside of the everyday life of picking and choosing. But also, there is no everyday life of picking and choosing outside of enlightenment either. The enlightened mind, luminous awareness, is built into every moment of our deluded human experience. which are right there, hiding in plain sight. Do you see it? Buddha nature is in every moment.

[33:01]

It's not a special moment. It's not that it's not here and not there. Or that it's here and not there. It's everywhere. Life is just like that. So the only question for us is, how do we allow that in? How do we open to that? Or do we find ourselves closing off to it in some way? And if so, why? In the many, there is one. So picking and choosing, enlightenment is already there, beyond the picking and choosing. In the one, there are many. moment of kind of serene union, gathering, sushin, gathering at the heart-mind and experience everything as one, if you will, the whole world's multiplicity and diversity and confusion and violence are right here with you on your peaceful meditation seat while Tassara Creek is flowing.

[34:19]

The birds are singing, and it's spring here in the valley. Nothing is left out. So practically speaking, how does this work? It means that in every moment of ordinary activity and thought, I have to pick and choose. And of course, I do that. And I'm going to do it based on my karma. based on my personal situation, based on my personality, my character, the circumstances I find myself in. But not only that, I also do it based on my dharma training. I do it based on my vows and my commitments and the precepts. Every choice I make will be both right and wrong. But the opposite is also true. Everything that I pick up will have some benefit somewhere.

[35:28]

And every moment that I live will be a moment of appreciation and learning. So whatever I get or lose in the moment, I have to accept it. Then in the next moment, I'll find myself in a radically new situation. Can I open to that one as well? I know that many of us have been doing a certain amount of picking and choosing about what to do next after this practice period. Anyone? A few people? Yeah. For some, the decision may feel kind of weighty, and we might feel some anxiety about how to make it. Before making an important decision, maybe after we've done our diligent research that we've weighed the pros and cons, It's helpful to take the time to sit mindfully with the choice at hand.

[36:31]

And this means giving up thinking about the choice. But just sitting quietly with the choice as an open question. Sometimes I think of it as dropping a pebble into a pond. And you can see how it kind of ripples through the pond. So if there's sitting with an open question. You know, Dogen might say, think, not thinking. This allows the choice to breathe and reverberate throughout our being, permitting all aspects of being that rational thought alone cannot fathom or penetrate to resonate with the choice. And as we hold the choice in our heart-mind, we can allow it to incubate and be worn by an inner light.

[37:40]

As we sit, incorrect thoughts and feelings we have not been previously aware of have the space to unfold and inform us. When we take the time to sit with a decision in mindfulness, we emerge into a new kind of clarity, one that rings true within our deepest selves. While the choice we make may not still be the correct one, it will be the best and most authentic one we can make for ourselves at this time. So in the last 10 minutes or so of my talk, I want to offer a postscript of sorts. And I want to say a few things about the relationship between choice and free will. And then conclude.

[38:42]

So please bear with me. Feel free to adjust your posture if you need. I recall that in the very first class of the Ongo, when I invited you all to share some of the questions you had regarding karma, some of you wondered about the place of free will. and choice vis-à-vis karma. I think Klaus, in particular, expressed that question. And last, it was his karma to not be here to get that response. So anyhow, I thought maybe perhaps some of you shared that, and so I'll speak to it now briefly, because we won't have time in our brief session on the day after the Shusup ceremony to explore it. So when we speak of karma, attention, action, and choice, then we also need to understand the place of free will in both setting intentions and making choices. And according to one dictionary that I looked up, the word free will, free will is the freedom of humans to make choices but not determined by prior causes or by divine intervention.

[39:53]

So in other words, free will means that humans are inherently capable of deliberating and making choices that are not determined by outside influences. Now, we don't have much divine intervention in Buddhism, but we certainly do talk about prior causes and interdependent influences. And so given that, if we follow the dictionary definition of free will, it doesn't look like there is free will in the view of the Buddha Dharma, because the teachings say that Everything that happens, including choice, is determined by conditions and causality. And typically, philosophical arguments around free will take either a deterministic bent, implying that all events are somehow determined by factors outside of human will, such as the laws of nature or God or destiny or something else.

[40:57]

Or they go the route of indeterminism, meaning that there's no such thing as free will, and events are mostly random and not necessarily caused by anything. So what's the Buddhist orientation for you? The shorthand answer is that Buddhism doesn't take a specific stand on the question of free will, but neither does it propose that we have nothing to say about the course and unfolding of our lives. You got the middle way here? You hear the middle way? So while the question of for real doesn't figure prominently in Buddhist writings, as it does in Western theology, philosophy, and psychology, it's actually a topic that was addressed indirectly in the early Buddhist writings. In a 2011 article in the Journal of Conscious Studies, the author and Buddhist practitioner B. Allen Wallace said that

[41:58]

According to these early Buddhist writings, the Buddha rejected both determinism and indeterminism, as understood at that time, for traumatic and ethical reasons. In essence, the Buddha taught that all events have a prior cause, and that our lives are deeply conditioned by cause and effect or karma, thus refuting indeterminism. And he taught that we are personally responsible for our lives and actions, thus refuting determinism. But Buddha went even further as he also rejected the idea that there is an independent, autonomous self, either apart from or within the Skānas that make choices and acts in the first place. And Wallace writes, thus the sense that each of us is an autonomous, non-physical subject who exercises his ultimate control over the body and mind without being influenced by prior physical or psychological conditions is an illusion.

[43:04]

And that, it seems, pretty much refutes the notion pretty well. And then there's another well-regarded Buddhist monk and scholar, Vapala Lahula. In his book, What the Buddha Taught, he acknowledges that The question of free will has occupied an important place in Western thought and philosophy. But, he writes, according to dependent origination, this question does not and cannot arise in Buddhist philosophy. If the whole existence is relative, conditioned, and interdependent, how can will alone be free? Will, like any other thought, is conditioned. So-called freedom itself is conditioned and relative. Such a conditioned and relative free will is not denied. There can be nothing absolutely free, physical or mental, as everything is interdependent and relative.

[44:10]

If free will implies a will independent of conditions, independent of cause and effect, such a thing does not exist. How can a will, or anything for that matter, arise without conditions, away from cause and effect, when the whole of existence is conditioned and relative and is within the law of cause and effect? Here again, the idea of free will is basically connected with the ideas of God, soul, justice, reward, and punishment. Not only is so-called free will not free, but even the very idea of free will is not free of conditions. So, given this, we could say that the key to understanding a Buddhist orientation to free will is Rahula's qualifier, that there is free will. It's just that it's condition and it's relative. In other words, free will can't stand outside of cause and conditions.

[45:17]

free will isn't really free because it's conditioned. Unless we think we might have one remaining foothold on which to rest, Vahula kicks away the last run. Not only is so-called free will not free, the very idea of free will is not free from conditions. So the concept of free will itself is merely a fabrication based on other conditioned and conceptual There's no there there to free will. Studying karma entails studying how it is that we can take responsibility for our lives, the ways in which we navigate them, as well as how we relate to circumstances. And as Wallace notes, rather than asking the metaphysical question of whether humans already have free will, Buddhism takes a more pragmatic approach, exploring ways in which we can acquire greater freedom to make wise choices that are truly conducive to our own and others' genuine well-being.

[46:31]

So it's not so much, is will itself free, as we're seeing its condition, it's the matter of a question of, is the human free to make decisions? So to reiterate once more, Buddhism teaches that no matter what happens to you, no matter what's going on, you always have some degree of choice about how you respond and what you do next. As practitioners of the Buddha Dharma, the choice around choice and free will fundamentally boils down to this. At those critical, precious moments, when your perspective widens to... mindfulness and practice, and you become more aware of yourself and the nature of karmic conditioning, you can act in accordance with your bodhisattva aspiration to relieve suffering for self and others, rather than fall back into old and unskillful habit patterns and compulsions.

[47:38]

And so this is a key aspect of what practice is about. taking advantage of our moments of choice, yes, conditioned by will, which arise countless times throughout the day and night, and never losing faith that each of those little choices matters. We do our best to maintain our faith that we can always do something to relieve suffering and move toward greater wisdom and compassion, no matter what is happening. 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, visit sfcc.org and click Giving.

[48:40]

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