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. We're now just about a week plus into our three and a half week intensive on the Xin Xin Ming by Sun Sun, the mind of great And this week in the class, we began reading the first third of the text. And I invited all of us, as we engage with the words, to not try too hard. not to struggle too hard to understand, but rather to allow the words to come in, to touch, to resonate.

[01:15]

And so I invited the participants, all of the people engaging in the intensive, to see what it was like. like he's done in morning service here, to read the text and see what lands. And for me, there was a particular line that stood out that I want to speak to and from both this evening, which is this one. He says, do not seek justice. The truth. Only cease to cherish opinions. A few days ago, I talked about Dogen Zenji's vow. The vow to hear the true Dharma.

[02:22]

And here he's saying, don't seek the truth. just undo. What we are looking for isn't someplace else. So the direction of our practice is not to go somewhere. I've been saying that I don't feel that sangsan is telling us what to do. Many people know the first line of the poem, the great way is not difficult for those who have no preferences. It's very easy to hear that as an admonition. Don't have preferences. But it's not what he's saying. The great way is not difficult for

[03:27]

for those who have no preferences, is pointing us, is inviting us. So in the last couple of talks, I have been trying to unpack and unfold how this process of preference, how this process of having and cherishing, clinging to opinions happens. And I'm going to try again this evening. And it's a little bit technical. And I say that up front because I ask you to stay with me. Because even though what I'm going to describe may sound a little bit technical, it is so important. Because this practice of cherishing, of clinging to, of holding to our opinions, our views, our beliefs, does so much harm.

[04:54]

When we insist that our view is right, it allows us to hurt, harm, and as we saw again in this past week, kill others who don't fit into or hold our view. So this isn't just an academic point. What we're doing here is essential. So every moment of our experience, and by experience I mean every moment of sense experience, we have six senses.

[06:10]

our eyes, our ears, our nose, our tongue, our touch, our mind. And every moment of sensory experience, there is a sensory organ that makes contact with a sensory object. This is such, again, sort of technical experience, but look around for a moment and you'll see the eye sees Azafu, Azafu. Zafu, right? An object. So when the I and the object come together, seeing arises. Seeing consciousness. And the same for all the other senses. And what's described in this, you were just talking about this in the tea before dinner, in this... teaching, beautiful teaching from the Buddha of Patika Samuppada, 12-fold chain of causation.

[07:15]

This was, in some ways, the step-by-step process that the Buddha saw, that the Buddha came to understand by paying close attention to his own direct experience. He saw this process, which was a description of how suffering happens. And when we pay close attention to how suffering happens, we can begin to discover how suffering can unhappen. So each moment of sensory experience, of contact, seeing, hearing, etc., has what's called a vedana. And I invited... everyone in the intensive this week to pay attention, to start to notice your moments of experience through the lens of the Vedana, which in the simplest way is our experiences, we experience moments as pleasant or unpleasant.

[08:25]

There's also neutral. Most of the time we don't notice neutral. Sometimes we do, but at least start to notice pleasant and unpleasant. Every moment. And what happens in this cycle is that Vedana becomes Tanha. Tanha is the second noble truth, the cause of suffering. So we have a pleasant or unpleasant experience, and very simply put, we like it or we don't. If it's pleasant, we like it. If it's unpleasant, we don't like it. And that tanha leads to what's called upadana, clinging. And again, it's both sides. We hold, we cherish what we like, and we push away. We reject, we judge, we harm, in some cases, what we don't like.

[09:32]

And this is going on all the time. And we have an opportunity to start to notice for ourselves, to catch that process. Simply seeing or hearing, pleasant or unpleasant, I like it, I don't. I lean in, I push away. And based on all of that, I opine. I have opinions. Because all of us are what we could just call our reactions to our moment-to-moment experience. All of it is conditioned. What I find pleasant may be different than what you find pleasant. I'll give you an example of you eat something. that you think looks really good, and you taste it you don't like.

[10:38]

Unpleasant. Don't like. Judge. Right? Now I have an opinion. I don't like Pad Thai. Right? And then the next time Pad Thai is served, your relationship to the Pad Thai is going to be colored by that last experience. Right? We don't see it fresh. We see it through the lens of our conditioning. And that conditioning is personal, based on experiences I have. And it also comes down through generations. And all of us sit in a culture, in a world that has preferences. And we soak all of that in. And all of that conditions us. I sometimes find it entertaining almost for myself to remember that, especially those opinions that I cherish, that I hold dear, that they're not really mine.

[11:43]

I think they're mine. That's my opinion. I think. I believe. But actually, it's all been given to me through my conditioning. So I want to underscore a bit this evening an aspect of this opining mind, and in particular to focus on the mind that doesn't like. We would call this in Western psychology the judging mind, although we can have judgments that are positive, but mostly positive. when we like something and we have a positive judgment, it doesn't cause us that much trouble. Sometimes it does if we hold. But the judging mind, the mind that is nitpicking and critiquing and constantly telling us not good enough, essentially, don't do that.

[12:54]

That's not a good idea. You'll never, you always, we all have this. A judging mind has quite a few opinions about how you should be and I should be and we should be and the world should be. Some of them are very obvious. We know this is my opinion. I have this judgment. Many of them are buried. We don't know that we have this judgment or opinion until we bump into a circumstance that doesn't go the way we expect. And we go, oh, I didn't know. I felt that way. I have this funny example that is bubbling up. It's not funny, but it's quirky. Some years ago, my dear husband was in a serious bicycle accident and had a brain injury, a mild traumatic brain injury.

[13:57]

And I shall always say he's fine. He's doing great. So don't worry. But during a particular stretch of time, right at the beginning, When he was in the hospital, we didn't know what would happen. And it was a very intense period of time. And right in the middle of that, days spent with medical people and back and forth to the hospital and sort of just trying to keep my feet on the ground, our house was broken into. And I remember thinking, no, no, it's not allowed. If you're in the middle of one crisis, you can't have another one. I didn't know that I thought that until there it was.

[14:58]

This is a simple, in a way, simple example, but this is true for all of us. We often don't know. until we bump smack into it. So the judging mind, what we call, again, Western psychology calls the superego. So we know about the ego self, the I, me, mine, and the superego's job, according to Western psychology, is to keep that I, me, and mining in line. You don't want to step too far out of what makes it comfortable, its own sense of homeostasis. So this creates a problem because when we come to do spiritual practice, when we take up Buddhism, when we practice Zen and Zazen, we are taking our I-me-mind self out of its normal, familiar way.

[16:07]

of being known. And so this, this super ego is kind of, uh, over imposing structure. It, uh, gets very active. It's not that happy about what we're doing. And it will sometimes make quite a bit of noise. You may have noticed in your own, uh, I remember the first time I ever sat for a week of sashim. I was out at Green Gulch Farm, and I had a very stiff body, and I was on two cushions. It was kind of wobbly, and then I had cushions under. It was very hard to sit still. And all around me, everybody else, and my mind was just going and going about how, look at all those other people, and what's wrong with you, and you're squirming, and you're sniffling, and why did you even think you could do this, and on and on.

[17:20]

At some point, spontaneously, these images began to arise. And the images, every time that voice would say something, really unkind to me, I'd see an image of myself in my mind's eye getting punched in the face or kicked in the stomach that got my attention. My voice had been there for a long, long time, but I had never seen what it was doing. I was telling a story to someone the other day, and I thought that was the punchline, this seeing of this kind of inner violence, right? And they said, well, then what happened? And it took me a little while to remember, but I do remember that once I saw, then I cried for a long time.

[18:25]

Years, actually. Every time I would go and sit and begin to soften the And I remember one of my teachers, I came in for a practice discussion at a Dokkasan meeting, crying. And I said, are these tears? Is this the truth? And he said, the tears are the lubrication for the truth. They soften us. They allow us in the door. So if you don't cry, in your meditation, please don't worry. But if it does happen, don't worry either. It's okay. So this force, this psychic force of this superego can be quite harsh and cruel, but it can also be very subtle. It's kind of a shapeshifter.

[19:29]

And I remember years later when I went to Tassajara for the first time, And I sat and I was quite sure that when I got to the monastery, my mind would finally be quiet. Oh, yeah. And I heard a different voice, but it was of the same kind of family. And this time the voice wasn't punching me. This time the voice said something like, maybe, maybe you could sit up just a little bit straighter. And there it was. Trying to help me. This is what this force is doing. It's trying to help, but it's constantly saying, whatever it is you're doing, it's not good enough. Whatever it is that's happening, no, can't possibly be this.

[20:30]

So this same force, this same psychic energy, shows up in Buddhist teaching as well. Some of you may be familiar with what's called the Salata Sutta, the dart or the arrow. And in this particular teaching, the Buddha is giving a discourse to his children, monks, and he says, now imagine, monks, that a person were stabbed, pierced by an arrow. Would that be a difficult experience? Unpleasant, right? Yes. And then imagine that that same person took a second arrow and added it to the mix. Would that be helpful? And these are very sharp monks.

[21:40]

They say, no. And then he goes on to compare an untaught person, he says, someone who's not practicing in this way, who isn't paying attention to Vedna, perhaps. That person, when they feel an unpleasant experience, says they beat their breast and they complain and they resist and they resent. They add all these extra arrows. But a well-taught disciple of the Buddha still gets arrows. Being a practitioner doesn't mean you're off the hook for unpleasant experience. You know this. But what it does mean is that you can begin to learn how not to add on. When you're already having a hard experience, you don't have to say, bad. You don't have to resist, resent, compare, judge.

[22:46]

So this is in the early Buddhist teaching, the Buddha instructing the monks how to work with, how to not allow this judging, opining mind to pile on. Sometimes for us, I think, we don't notice the first arrow. We miss the Vedna, we miss that first unpleasant, and we don't really wake up until we're just full of arrows. There is another frame in which this same force is introduced, which is in this... archetypal figure called Mara, M-A-R-A. And in some descriptions, it's said that Mara hangs around until something like the sixth stage of enlightenment.

[23:53]

Mara is this force of judging, critiquing, trying to knock us off our seat. Sometimes in some of the texts it's described as the armies of Mara. And the story is that the Buddha, actually before he was a Buddha, he was a prince who had gone out and tried all these severe ascetic practices and at some point realized, hmm, I'm not sure this is the right way to go and made a course correction. The story is that he's right in On the brink of extinction, actually, he's starving himself to death, eating one sesame seed a day. And he's wracked with pain. And this is one of my favorite questions in the canon. It's said that as he's sitting, about to take himself out, this question bubbles up.

[25:02]

And the question is, might there be another way? I find this very useful when I am pushing myself, when I'm stuck somewhere, to just step back. Might there be another way? And he remembers. He doesn't try to think it out, but he has this memory come of a time when he's sitting under the shade of a rose apple tree as a child, and he falls spontaneously into this very blissful state of concentration and bliss. Ah, he remembers, yes, there is another way. And he stops starving himself and he takes nourishment. And as a result, he's ostracized by all his ascetic friends. And he basically sits down and says, I'm not going to get up. I'm resolute. I'm not getting up until I understand suffering and the end of suffering.

[26:08]

And while he's there, seated under the bow tree, he's besieged by the armies of Mara. Again, this is an archetypal description. Perhaps he's besieged by all kinds of external difficulties. But in this case, we might think of this as his inner psychic forces. And it's said, it's beautiful imagery, it's said that Mara shoots arrows. as he's sitting, and that with the power of his mindful awareness, each arrow that comes to him, he says, I see you, Mara. I know you, Mara. And spontaneously the arrow transforms midair from an arrow into a lotus blossom and showers him with fragrant petals. So this is one of the ways that we know from this story we can glean how to work with that voice or voices that come.

[27:22]

Pleasant or unpleasant? So at some point, Mara gets frustrated because the Buddha, not yet Buddha, is a really good meditator and he catches all the arrows. And so it's said that... Mara kind of sidles up to him and whispers in his ear, still trying, you know. And he says, who do you think you are? It's a good question. And remember, at this point, as I've been saying, he's not the Buddha yet. He's an ex-prince. He's an ex-ascetic. He's out on his own trying to find his way. And he doesn't say. Beautiful gesture.

[28:45]

Mara says, who do you think you are? And the Buddha reaches down and touches the earth. In some descriptions, it says the earth trembles to bear witness. It's okay for me to be here. I can take. my little square of earth. I belong here. Most recently I thought, oh, he's saying, I'm not a single solitary I. I'm connected. I'm a part of. So these are some ways that we can pick up for ourselves how to work with this force within ourselves. We can notice and we can take up as a koan, what does it mean?

[29:51]

What does it mean for you to reach down and touch the earth, to hold your seat under whatever you are being besieged by? One more thing I want to say before I close it, and that is that I think it's useful to know that not only is Mara a shapeshifter, you know, he, they, it may go from wearing punching gloves to wearing white gloves and checking the corners for dust. But also... Mara doesn't always show up as a voice. Sometimes we may notice in a more subtle way the impact in our mood, in our energy, in our body.

[31:02]

I always think of this example of walking down the street one day in a perfectly happy mood and catching a glimpse of myself in a window. An image. And I didn't recognize it at the time, but by the time I got to the end of the block, I had completely shifted. And instead of walking contentedly looking around, my posture had shifted. My energy had shifted. I was feeling kind of depressed for some reason. I didn't understand. And then I realized that I had seen this image of myself and this voice had come in. saying something like, who is that old person? I didn't hear the voice, but I felt the impact. And so you may use this also as a cue for yourself.

[32:03]

If you suddenly find yourself sad, losing energy, defeated, slumping or tight, It might be a hint that Mara is in the neighborhood. You might see. Is there some judgment around? Is there some opinion, some way that I didn't even know that I thought I was supposed to be that I'm not living up to? This is this subset, this judging mind of opinion that can be an enormous obstacle for us as we practice. And so learning to become familiar and skillful, finding skillful ways to work with it, are useful, is useful.

[33:12]

I want to close by turning the lens back out in the remembering that our opinions are conditioned and that our judging mind too is shaped by the context in which we sit and whatever the familiar sort of established norms are of the culture that we're in, whether it's the culture of California or the United States or Beginner's Mind Temple, that we're soaking that in and it shapes what we see, how we see, and how we judge. And especially if we don't fit the norms, of our collective.

[34:26]

We don't fit, we're not the right shape or the right color or the right gender or the right sexual orientation or political orientation. Whatever that is, it can also be the case that not only do we have judgment turned inward on ourselves, but we can be on the receiving end of judgment. sometimes a violent judgment from others. So I want to close with another poem from the Terigata, the Poems of Awakening of the Early Buddhist Nuns. And this is a poem from the Bhikkhuni Soma. Soma means happiness. And in her poem, she describes her encounter with Mara. And I would invite you, as I read it, to substitute.

[35:35]

So Mara, in this case, is attacking her for being a woman and saying, never, not possible, not for you. But whatever category you feel yourself not fitting in not being part of, not accepted by. You can feel the ouch. It's one of my Mara practices. When I feel Mara, sometimes I just say ouch, quietly. So you can feel the pain of that kind of aggression, and you can be inspired by her response. Because like Song San, this is a nun who has, or like the Buddha, this is someone who has fully taken her seat. And she puts Mara in his place.

[36:39]

So here's the poem. He said, this is Mara. He said, how could a woman who knows no more than how to cook, and make babies possibly reach the other shore. So how is it to fill that in for yourself? How could a who only knows or doesn't know or possibly wake up? How could a woman who knows no more than how to cook, and make babies possibly reach the further shore, on the way to which so many good men have drowned or turned back. I said, Mrs. Soma, the mind is neither male nor female.

[37:46]

When directed toward the arising and passing away of all things, it easily penetrates the mass of confusion. The mind is neither male nor female. When directed toward the arising and passing away of all things, it easily penetrates the mass of confusion. Be serious. What's a few inches of meat compared to the immeasurable reaches of the liberated mind. Soma is firmly seated in the vast expansiveness of our true nature, our Buddha nature, and she's fully able to appreciate the unique particularity of her situation, of her body,

[38:52]

of her mind, just as it is. This is our task. This is our work to, as I described the other day, to allow our feet to touch the deep, dark depths of the ocean at the same time that we don't try to escape from the churn, the flap of the wet and the waves. The mind is neither male nor female. When directed toward the arising and passing away of all things, it easily penetrates the mass of confusion. Be serious. What's a few inches of meat compared to the immeasurable reaches of the liberated mind?

[40:02]

Thank you very much. Thank you for listening to this podcast offered by the San Francisco Zen Center. Our Dharma talks are offered at no cost 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. May we fully enjoy the Dharma.

[40:31]

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