This podcast is offered by San Francisco Zen Center on the web at sfcc.org. Our public programs are made possible by donations from people like you. It's my great pleasure to be here. I thank you for being here. I thank those of you out there in Zoom land for being here. I especially want to thank my teachers, Avid Ed, and Shosan Victoria Austin. I want to thank the Tantos, the previous and the new, Nancy and Anna, and also Abbott David, and to all of you. So we just took a vow to having it to see and listen to, to remember. And so a prime part of our vow that we just made is to remember. And I want to talk about remembering tonight.

[01:02]

To remember means to bring an image or an idea from the past to mind. Bringing back to mind what is lost or scattered. Bringing back before the conscious mind things which exist in the memory. But it's also an experience to remember everything. is an experience. So it's now been six months since I was chuseau for the fall practice period, which was led by Abbot David. The topic was on karma. And I learned about and experienced during that time of that practice period about wholehearted engagement. And I was fully engaged in with little room in my mind for that monkey mind that often goes on, and the usual escapes that I'm addicted to for trying to get away from what's going on, what's within me, what's deep there.

[02:11]

The escapes that I'm addicted to to prevent me from remembering my true or Buddha nature. We try not to remember because we confuse remembering with an often painful past. We try to escape, I try to escape, and not acknowledge ourselves or our true nature. It is in fact our true nature where real salvation resides. So I've spent many years seeking. And trying to find something. And trying to attain something. So I received my Jukai, the precepts. Initially, what drove me to do it was, when I first came here, I saw all these people with these rakasus on. And I didn't even note that they were of different colors.

[03:15]

I just noted, wow, those look really cool. I want one of those. It was like wanting a high school letter jacket. And I had little or no knowledge of what it meant. And it was an example, perfect example of me looking outside myself for salvation. So in 2009, being given my Dharma name, Henzan, and being told that it meant universally seeking, I thought, wow, that's really great. That's really cool, you know, universally seeking it. That's what I've been doing, you know, throughout my life, or at least, you know, after starting in my 20s, you know, I was seeking here and there and over there. I tried, you know, I tried out astrology and I tried out tarot and I tried out yoga and I tried out... And I tried out this, and I tried out that, and I tried out drugs, and I tried out alcohol, and, you know, I'm trying that out, the whole world.

[04:24]

I'm universally seeking. And 13 years later, one day in front of Zen Center, and this is now about only six months ago, after I'd finished being Chuzo, and at the conclusion of that, I started to study with Abbot Ed, and he asked me, well, what do you want to study? And I said, well, I'd like to study Dogen. And he said, okay, what in particular? And I said, well, I don't know, the mountains and rivers fascicle kind of fascinates me, talking about mountains moving and rivers doing this and then not moving and... The mountain being the river and the river being the mountain. And then the mountains, the mountains, the rivers, the river. So perplexing, but I started studying it. But one day I'm walking up the sidewalk here and along comes Victoria Austin. And she said, well, how's it going with the studies?

[05:27]

And I said, well, I'm studying. She said, oh, don't forget to study your name. I said, what do you mean? She said, hands on. I said, yeah, no, that's my name. She said, well, that's one of Dogen's fascicles. Now, she gave me that name 13 years prior. I said, well, why didn't you tell me? And her answer was, I did. And I went, oop, I didn't hear it. But it only took me 13 years. I'm getting a little quicker, you know. It's taken me much longer for some things, you know, to transmute them, if you will. So, you know, oh, well, that's very interesting. Yes. Thirteen years later, I'm a little quicker. And after I've been Sushou or head student, it was part of Dogen's, our founder of Soto Zen's, and part of the Shoban Genzo or the true Dharma eye was...

[06:36]

Henzan, my very name, you know, and I said, well, this is something. So I thought that universally seeking meant looking everywhere. I thought in Zen, one had to have many teachers. You know, you have a teacher for a while, and the stories of our ancestors talk about, you know. So and so had a teacher here and then went there. Dogen went off, had some teachers in Japan and went to China and had some more teachers and came back. And, you know, and so I thought, oh, well, you're supposed to just jump around and have a lot of teachers. That's what universally seeking means within the Zen context. And, you know, one had to look under every bush or every rock. So I looked everywhere. And. As a part of that, I explored many avenues of spiritual development, or what I thought was spiritual development, and I was sometimes really disillusioned and sometimes really disappointed and often unsatisfied.

[07:43]

What I didn't understand, what I didn't remember, what I didn't remember was that I was looking, until I read Dogon's, was that I was looking in all the wrong places. I was looking out here, over there, back here, under here, all these different ways and kinds of things. I was striving and grasping. And I was not finding something or not getting something. It was always about finding something or getting something. Little did I know I had it. Little did I know I have it. So hands-on is sometimes translated as seeking one's master far and wide. And you can easily interpret that like I've got to go here and I've got to go there and whatever.

[08:48]

What it really means is that seeking one's master far and wide is within oneself. For the master is one's true self, or bodhicitta, or bodhi nature, or original nature, original face, or original self. So, as I mentioned, Henzon is one of the fascicles of the Shobhan Genzo. It's one of Dogen's later writings, written in 1244. And it's not only translated as seeking one's master far and wide, but But according to Kaz Tanahashi, it's inclusive study. So it's inclusively studying everything. Others have translated it as thorough investigation or thorough penetration. So we penetrate that veil that's covering our Buddha nature. And we try to get the remembrance of it.

[09:53]

That act of working on and penetrating that veil is remembering, the process of remembering our Buddha nature. Through investigation and inclusive study, we become in touch with our original self. Shoku Akimura has said, wherever we go, the self is there. That's the uninteresting, isn't it? Because I was going over everywhere looking for myself, and it was right there. It's right here. It's right there for you and you, and it's right here for all of us. So he says, wherever we go, the self is there, and the self is one with the entire world of the self. Where we go, we don't leave this place. So trying to leave this place is futile.

[10:55]

It gets us nowhere, literally. This place means this seamless reality, this oneness with self and with all beings. So that's how Okamura ended it. This place, we don't leave this place. This place means this seamless reality, the oneness with self and with all beings. So one is practicing to remember far and wide, like that one translation says, seeking one's master far and wide, within oneself, the master, which is one's true self. Dogen, when he met the old Tenzo, when he was in China, was told, he said, what is practice? And the old Tenzo said, there is nothing in the world that is hidden.

[11:56]

So our original self, our true self is here. It's not hidden. We don't have a memory of it. We need to pierce that veil. So we can choose, can and do choose to avoid. I do often choose to avoid and not remember my true self. It's a strange choice. In fact, it's actually kind of an addictive one. I get so caught up in not remembering that I foster it. I coddle it. And it's not necessarily conscious either. There's something in me I don't want to remember. I don't want to go back there. I'm afraid to go back there. So there's two techniques in particular that I'm prone to using, and they are being judgmental and regretting the past.

[13:08]

As many of you know, we just concluded a three-week intensive studying the Xing Xing Ming with Pam Wise. And at one of her lectures, she was reading from the poem, and it just struck me. You know, the Xing Xing Ming is the great way, and the line from this poem leapt out at me. And it said, the burdensome practice of judgment brings annoyance and weariness. How burdensome being judgmental is, and how much annoyance it brings forth, and how much weariness it brings forth. I can get annoyed at anything and everything. I can get annoyed and be in annoyance all day long. It doesn't matter what comes up before me or out there, wherever.

[14:13]

It's annoying. And I can do this not only for a part of a day or a whole day. I can do it for days on end. Interestingly, I can get annoyed at things I like very much. Many of you know that I'm quite a baseball fan. And I found myself annoyed that, oh, I have to go to the baseball game today. I mean, I've spent lots of money on baseball tickets, lots of time, and enjoy it, and I love it. And nonetheless, I can get annoyed that I've got to do that. It's like, why do I have to do that? Why me? Why now? Why here? Why? Why? And once I get annoyed, I can get so weary with it. And then, even more problematic is, I get annoyed at myself for being annoyed. And I revel in that.

[15:16]

Why am I so annoyed? I shouldn't be annoyed. That's not annoying. That person's not annoying. It's a manner, it's an addiction that I use to escape from myself so that I don't have to be here and now. I don't have to be present. I don't have to remember my true nature because there's something really frightening about that. What will happen if I really realize and really experience who and what I am? That's frightening. That's very scary. And yet it's something that I strive after, something that I would like, something that I want, something that I've been attempting to achieve, and as I said, sometimes very disillusioned and very misled. So I don't know.

[16:19]

It's a strange thing. But that burdensome practice of judgment, bringing annoyance and weariness, is a prime barrier. I think not just for me, but a prime barrier perhaps for many of you, if not all of you, to remembering your Buddha nature, to remembering your original face and your original self. So this is one of my preferred ways of not looking at myself. I can and do so distract myself by being annoyed at everything and everyone, as I said, even the things I like, that I become weary and I give up. This is a form of external distraction. It's all out there. It's not me. It's not my fault. It's because of you or you or this or that

[17:22]

What have you? It's just an escape. And as I mentioned before, that escape becomes a bit addictive. Next, we come to one of my other favorite internal distractions from the true self. And that's regretting the past. So I carry some shame and guilt. within me about my past. I spent many years as an alcoholic and an addict. And during those many years, I wasn't always the best of people. I wasn't the best father, best husband. Not that I had to be the very best, but I wasn't a good husband or a good father. In many instances, I got myself in trouble. I got others in trouble.

[18:23]

But it wasn't only the alcohol and the drugs that led to this. I mean, there's parts of my past that I'd rather not remember. I'd rather not remember about my father dying when I was 10 years old and not comprehending it and not understanding it and not knowing why it just happens seemingly all of a sudden. So. Regretting one's past does indeed get in the way of being who we really are. Does indeed prevent us from remembering our true self. Interestingly, in 12-step recovery, it offers some hope with this about the past. There's what are referred to as the promises. in the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous. And these promises come forth after one has worked nine of the first of the 12 steps.

[19:30]

And in the promises, part of them, it reads, we will not regret the past, nor wish to shut the door on it. That's a big statement. And I can't say that I've always felt that, because I sometimes do, even today, 30 years later into recovery, still sometimes regret my past. But it says, no, continues, no matter how far down the scale we have gone, we will see how our experience can benefit others. That feeling of uselessness and self-pity, will disappear. That's a beautiful thing. We will see how our experience can benefit others. So if I'm willing to remember my past and acknowledge it, that can, in some instances, in many instances, become of benefit to others, perhaps as a lesson of what not to do, perhaps to know that

[20:43]

They're not the only person that's experienced such a thing, or they're not the only person that has done a certain behavior or misbehavior, if you will. And so it comes, it brings forth the Sangha, taking refuge in Sangha with all of us, potentially, with everyone. And by doing so, it's a great, benefit and great help to us individually in allowing us to pierce that veil, allowing us to begin remembering. So, you know, being, practicing that burdensome practice of judgment, which is so annoying and so weary, and the regretting the past and not being willing to look at it and acknowledging it.

[21:47]

If we can work with those, which we can, there are many and varied ways of doing so. Becoming aware of it is a great way to start. And we can do that through simply our sitting practice. We can do that by speaking with our teachers during Dogasan, our practice. We can do that by sharing with one another. We can do it by conscious effort. And it's a slow, slow process. At least that's what I've found and am finding because by no ways have I completely dealt with my annoyances nor my past. And some of it's very painful, and some of it takes a while to slowly, and we need to slowly and gently let things arise and come up.

[22:54]

So we practice to remember. We don't practice to seek or get. Our Buddha nature is within, sometimes deeply buried beneath fear and guilt. but it's always available to us. If we clear away our afflictions and honestly express our repentances, the great way welcomes us to our Buddha nature, our true self that is deep within, sometimes very deep within. So several months back, Abbot Ed gave a, Dharma Talk at Green Gulch, which I listened to online. And he said during that, these following quotes, which I love very much. He says, if we practice, we will forget less often.

[24:00]

And what he was talking about, we will forget less often how wonderful life is. And I think what he's also saying there and what I'm saying to you tonight is, if we practice, we will remember more often how wonderful life is. So I'd like to conclude tonight with a poem called Remember by Joy Harjo, a Native American Poet Laureate. And it goes as such. Remember the sky that you were born under. Know each of the star's stories. Remember the moon. Know who she is. Remember the sun's birth at dawn. That is the strongest point of time. Remember sundown and the giving away to my tonight.

[25:06]

Remember your birth, how your mother struggled to give you form and breath. You are evidence of her life and her mother's and hers. Remember your father. He is your life also. Remember the earth whose skin you are, red earth, black earth, yellow earth, White earth. Brown earth. We are earth. Remember the plants. Trees. Animal life. Who all have their tribes. Their families. Their histories too. Talk to them. Listen to them. They are alive poems. Remember the wind. Remember her voice. She knows the origin of this universe.

[26:10]

Remember you are all people and all people are you. Remember you are this universe and this universe is you. Remember all is in motion, is growing, is you. Remember language comes from this. Remember the dance, language is, that life is, remember. Thank you very much. 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 sfcc.org and click Giving. May we all fully enjoy the Dharma.

[27:09]

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