This podcast is offered by the San Francisco Zen Center on the web at sfzc.org. Our public programs are made possible by donations from people like you. Morning. Thank you for coming all this way. on a beautiful day here at Green Gulch Farm. And hopefully wherever you are, if you're online, thank you also for joining. This is the part of the week where I sit here and try to say something about Zen.

[01:12]

I thought as I was coming over here, I wonder what it's like to teach math. I'd like to try teaching math. So subtle and profound. So slippery. This practice of just being ourself. Of just being fully alive. We are how we are. As soon as we say anything about it. try to get something, and we move a little bit away from what it is right here already. So that's kind of the problem that we've taken on, that we take on every day in this hall and every week around this time.

[02:22]

Really, it's just a time to be together. Breathing out and breathing in. And seeing if we can remember that we're alive. If we can connect fully with what's here. To bring our whole our whole being into one place. To open and connect with what's here. So how do you do that? How do you open to your life?

[03:25]

How do you become One with your environment. How do you wholeheartedly be who you are? There's a funny aspect of this practice that is we're always a little bit unsure about how to do the practice that we do. We're always a little bit unsure. So we take up all these practices to try to connect us with this being alive. To try to open. We may feel a little bit separate from our life. A little bit separate from ourself. A little bit disengaged.

[04:30]

from this miracle of being. And then we come here or we turn to the teachings to try to find some way to rejoin, to reconnect with our life. And then we hear about different things that we can do, different techniques, different practices that we can take up. never quite sure if any of those techniques or practices really are the point. I was thinking this morning of my practice not so much as a technique. A technique that I would have for my practice is something that I would come up with somewhere else, and then I would bring to this moment something that I would apply to the moment, my technique.

[05:41]

I was playing with a word more like sincerity, such as it being here with some sincerity or intention. to sit here in touch with some longing to be all the way here. To be here right now, not as a thing that I'm doing, but almost as a prayer. I bring all of this up because recently I spent some time around meditators. And maybe you've had that experience sometimes with being around meditators. And I noticed I was a little bit uncomfortable around all of these meditators, very diligent and inspired and clear-minded.

[07:04]

And they would wonder what my practice is. And I would feel a little bit unsure. So I had the opportunity last month. who spend some time visiting some Chan Buddhist temples in Taiwan and China. Chan Buddhism is Zen. It's the same word. Chan and Zen are the same word. Chan is the Chinese form. And the Chinese lineage is the source of our transmission in the Japanese style of Zen, which is the sort that we have received here. at San Francisco Zen Center, Green Gulch.

[08:08]

As part of this time, I was able to do a short retreat with a wonderful Chan teacher in the lineage of Sheng Yan, Master Sheng Yan. Throughout the retreat, he emphasized the method. Have any of you heard this phrase? The method. And all of his students were very into the method. And so we would sit and he would say, just stay with the method. I thought, I think I'm supposed to have a method. It seems like the people sitting on my right and left have a method I was supposed to bring with me.

[09:25]

I would like to join in this single-minded application, my whole heart and body and mind absorbed on this method. but I don't remember what my method is. Maybe you remember this moment in the movie Annie Hall where this Californian caricature of a Californian at a party calls his guru and says, I forgot my mantra. An excellent line. As a now Californian hit, you know, stings a little bit. Just write, sting.

[10:26]

And that was a little bit my feeling. Like, okay, I'd slip out on a little break and make some phone calls. Or check, you know, I was doing this. Send my beginner's mind. There's something in here. We have a method, probably. I'm a little unsure the method. The point is to become one with each thing, each moment of my life. The point is to not be a ghost in my own skin, but to be completely here as myself with whatever's arising. Is that a... So I'm sensitive because I've spent time with people, and I recommend this if you're a Zen practitioner, to spend time with people who, following, you know, really a thousand years of lineage, who feel that it's embarrassing that people listen to me.

[11:41]

It exists, you know. People say, some people, there's probably somebody at some dharma center right now saying, you know, there's some people who sat zazen, who've meditated for 30 years, and they can't even tell you what their method is. And it's good, you know. To feel, you know, that... At first, there's this kind of defensiveness or insecurity. I do so have a method. It's just a very subtle secret method. And I remember this. This was a wonderful moment of beginner's mind because as a beginner or as that more awkward kind of like, I don't know, adolescent practice place where there's some confidence in the practice, but not a lot. of clarity about the practice, this feeling of insecurity.

[12:44]

Right, I should probably have a method. I don't want to be that guy, you know, who sits for 30 years not knowing how to sit. When I'm feeling confident, and I'd love to be with these people, and they say, some people, 30 years, And don't know how to sit. And I say, isn't that wild? Isn't that wonderful? 30 years and still no idea about how to make life become whole. Nothing to bring to this situation to complete it. A kind of uncertainty. A kind of crack of... I wonder how to be fully alive. right now. So after a little bit of this feeling of kind of like trying to find my method, feeling of discomfort of not having some pre-planned thing to do with my life,

[14:06]

was able to remember to just be there. To remember that I am devoted to some kind of practice, but it's not the practice of a method or a technique exactly. It includes that, but it's not exactly that. Again, it's more like a devotion to a kind of sincerity or a kind of intention. a kind of prayer, an effort to be open and clear and present with whatever is, like giving rise to a kind of invitation to my life, an invitation to myself to be here as I am. Somebody recently reminded me of this wonderful story.

[15:19]

I won't tell the whole story, but it's a ghost story, an old Chinese ghost story that was repurposed by the Zen tradition to become a teaching story. It's a story basically about a young person who becomes split into two, and one of them wanders off and has a An amazing life. And the other is immobilized in bed in their parents' house. It's a beautiful, it's a little bit haunting ghost story. And then in the end, there's this moment where they meet and there's this question, who's the real one? Wonderful. Tori. about feeling like a ghost.

[16:21]

And so that word has been turning, as I think about my own practice, this feeling of feeling a little bit ghost-like in life. I wonder if that resonates for any of you, if you feel a little bit like a ghost. Suzuki Roshi also mentions feeling like a ghost. When we separate from our life, separate from the world or our being, or feel like we're a little bit outside of something and we're doing something to it. We're a little bit separate from the world. And then we feel like a ghost. Because I guess that's what ghosts are. a little bit separate from the world, not totally joined, not totally one with this being alive.

[17:28]

We're trying to get something that we don't have, and we're trying to get away from something that we do have. And then we feel disconnected and ghost-like. So then maybe we try even harder to get something we don't have that will stop feeling this way or try harder to get rid of something we do have so that we can feel whole and really hear really solid. I think that's a great moment, a great thing to feel if you can feel your ghostness. I think that's a great... To be a ghost who knows that I'm a ghost. And then what? We feel a kind of longing to reconnect, to be fully here. And then our habitual mind says, yes, don't want to be a ghost.

[18:41]

I want to be fully here. So let's get rid of this ghost feeling. and get some meditation or something to reconnect, to re-engage. So this is a moment to be very careful of when we feel that longing to be more whole, that longing to be more completely in our life. That rather than rush off to try to fill something, that we actually just... Experience that disconnection thoroughly. Does that make sense? To just be fully a ghost? The kind of thing that Dogen Zenji, our Soto Zen founder, might say. Just all there is is ghosts. Forget about it. Just be completely the ghost that you are. Stop trying to get out of that. Feel what that's like. And then there's some joining.

[19:44]

There's some wholeness. Because we're not trying to get away from something we have. We're not trying to get something we don't have. But I don't feel zen. I don't feel connected. Right. Just feel that. That's where you are. That's the thing to connect with. But I want my heart to open. That's the thing to connect with. My heart is closed and I want it to open right there. The problem with the meditation techniques is it's going to give you some way to open your heart. But that's too far ahead. It's not time to do the technique. It's time to just feel that you're a closed-hearted ghost. And what is that actually like? What is the actual reality of this moment of closed-hearted ghost? It's ungraspable. It's not. You say you can't quite grasp it, and that's uncomfortable, but this is the situation.

[20:47]

We can't quite grasp it. It's ungraspable, and it's inconceivable, limitlessly deep reality of being exactly how we are now. to try something. It might be informative. But I'm not sure. So right now, we have this opportunity. We're sitting here. If you were to wholeheartedly take up being fully alive in this moment, what would that be?

[21:47]

Let's try that for a minute, just to be completely here, completely how you are. Be completely open and one with the situation of life right now. I'm fascinated by what just happened. I wonder if you notice what you did.

[22:53]

What did you do? What did you do to become whole, to fully be here? Saw some people close their eyes. Maybe you took a breath. Or touched your friend's knee. became still it's we say become become whole reconnect me fully alive and um something responds to that so i i wonder what muscle you used what what was that And was that something you knew that you brought, or was that something that came alive and responded to that wish, to that moment of connecting with the longing to be fully here?

[24:04]

Does that question make sense? What did you do there? What did you squeeze? And when you squeezed something to be fully here, was that helping you fully be here? Or were you actually trying to go somewhere else that you remember as having some characteristics like be fully here? This is the subtlety or the frustration. As soon as you did something, what was the spirit of that thing you did? As soon as you did something, your circumstance changed. So if you were listening to the sounds, beautiful way to connect with your life. You can try it out right now. Now we feel more connected to our life, hearing this beautiful bird song, but also we just changed our life by listening for the bird song.

[25:08]

You could really give yourself a headache trying to keep track of whether you just did the right thing or the wrong thing. The point is maybe you feel better, so that's good. The problem is now we've squeezed some muscle. We found some muscle. And something has changed a little. The birds are louder. The breath is deeper. And I feel more alive. So now when I apply this technique again, will it be to connect with how I'm actually doing in this moment, or will it be to make my breath deeper and make the birds louder and get a little bit away from this feeling of being a closed-hearted ghost?

[26:21]

So it's good to do some practice. But the spirit with which we do the practice is very important for us in Soto Zen especially. Is the spirit of the practice to move a little bit away from what we feel into something better and then we have a technique to do that? Or is the spirit of the technique that we want to just be how we are? So the most pure and wonderful thing, if any of you have no idea, like have never heard that question, have never heard that suggestion of being fully alive, then whatever you did, we want to know. We want that. That's beginner's mind. That is just the heart naturally coming up to meet this request or presence or oneness or connection or openness. You didn't bring something.

[27:33]

you sat in some kind of open sincerity, and there was a response. But those of us who've been sitting a long time have our whole bookshelves full of all the tricks and techniques that we do to get ourselves back. And those are good. But by get ourselves back, do we kind of secretly mean get to this better place? wonderful aspect of visiting Chan temples is feeling the difference between the way that the practice has evolved from the shared roots in 8th and 9th century China how differently it then evolved say from the 11th, 12th century on after being transmitted to Japan the Chinese and Japanese practices evolved without

[28:47]

much interaction there's some interesting exceptions but for the most part sort of evolved on different from early on and that transmission became about re-energizing and simplifying the practice by doing just one practice so in our school of Soto Zen founded by Dogen Zenji there's just one practice that we do and that's I'm not sure. That's to just, we call it just sitting. And then we get very complicated about it. And then we keep reminding each other, no, it really means just sitting. You say, yeah, right. Just, you know, capital J, capital S, something. It can't just be just sitting. There must be some trick. There must be some technique. This is my moment of, what's the trick again? So this practice of just sitting, which is to say, don't change anything.

[29:50]

Just be how you are. Upright. Be upright. And here. And don't do anything else. So that's our practice. A very silly practice that is profoundly transformative. But in China, Chan school kept this kind of this diversity of practices that in Japan got separated out into different lineages. Like they do that practice and we do this practice. In Chinese Chan, all of the Chan practices are present in the same temple. So you have monks practicing side by side. Everybody's kind of doing a different practice. Some might be contemplating sound, and they do cool practices too.

[30:55]

There's a lot of cool practices you can do. I recommend becoming a meditator if any of you would like to give that a try. Pursue the life that I did not. Become a meditator with some technique, you know, that's clear. So people contemplate sound and become just absorbed in the sound until they say there's not sound. so cool. And then some contemplate the breath in different ways. That one is a little more familiar to us in the kind of standard Soto Zen teaching. So yeah, if you're just sitting there, you're also breathing, so you could notice that if you wanted. And then there's this whole set of practices about wonder, about kind of doubt and wonder, that they lean into. Like, who is it?

[31:58]

Or a popular one is, who is it who is dragging this corpse around? It's sort of intense, right? But a great question. Who is it? It's like, what's the difference? Who is it? That's a great question. And just become absorbed in this kind of wonder. And when some are reciting the name of Buddha, it's reciting the name of Buddha. And then sometimes with a kind of background question, like, I wonder who's reciting the name of Buddha? So there's this whole set of practices. And they do a practice and they're clear about it. So you can ask them what's your practice and they'll tell you. So you see why I was uncomfortable. And so I kind of had the same question that I'm sharing now. When we do a practice, when these wonderful practitioners who I met are doing a practice, is the spirit of it to get to something, or is the spirit of it to connect with what's here?

[33:12]

And in a way, for sotos, and that's the fundamental question, It's not so much like you're not allowed to do a technique, or we want to make sure you're not doing one of these practices, or we want to make sure you're not too clear about anything. That's not at all the point. The point is, can we keep the spirit of the practice not towards, I'm going to do this technique so that the birds get louder. I'm going to do this technique so that my breath gets deeper. Whether or not we do a technique, can the spirit of every moment of our life be... May I join more fully with how it actually is right now to be? Am I doing some meditation to change something or to fully be what I am before it changes? The most strict Zen practice says, so don't do anything.

[34:24]

But that's too, it's too pure. It's so pure that it's not so helpful. You know, like water that's too pure to drink. So poisonous, so pure. I don't know if that's true, but I've heard that. So Hongzhi, this founder of the silent illumination, so some of these monks and practitioners in Taiwan and China also are practicing silent illumination, which is to just sit with an open, clear mind in the brightness of the present moment. That's our team. who sort of elaborated on this practice, major figure in our lineage, says outright, it's a common thing in Zen, it can't be practiced.

[35:37]

It can't be practiced or actualized because it is intrinsically full and complete. So how do you practice what's already here? Dogen Zenji, our founder in Japan, says, the Zazen, and I kept thinking of this as I was meeting people and struggling with practice, the Zazen, the practice that we're teaching, is not training in meditation. It's not learning a technique to make your life deeper. It's a really interesting comment. It's really pointing to something important. He says, actually, it's not training in meditation. It's just stepping through the gate into ease and joy. Sounds nice. Which is like the ease and joy of not trying to do anything with our life and not try to manipulate our life in any way, but to just be how we are.

[36:52]

There's something easeful and joyful about allowing that just being. Or Suzuki Roshi, our San Francisco Zen Center founder says, it's Zazen sits Zazen. So this is another way that we understand this. When we sit, if we have a technique that we're doing, we're doing something. But if we sit and let the meditation do the meditation, we're giving the zazen to zazen with this kind of question, with this openness. I wonder how to be fully alive right now, like we did. And then zazen might answer, and then we say, great, you seem to know what to do. So we give our zazen to zazen. We don't do it. That's what I wanted to talk about this morning.

[38:00]

I'm grateful for your patience and attention. I want to really emphasize that this practice of shikandaza, of just sitting, or this practice of not really knowing what our technique is because we're not bringing something into the moment. It's more like we're asking the moment. doesn't mean that we can't take up some technique some people sometimes we can feel that way that well i do shikantaza so i'm not allowed to be mindful of my breathing because shikantaza is something different than that i think the best way to think of it is that shikantaza is just this spirit of whatever practice i'm doing it's to reveal and connect me with what it's like right now

[39:04]

It's not to become calm or to become deep or to become anything. It's to be how I am. Is that clear? Am I just hammering the snail again and again? Like the ancestors. So, of course, when we sit, you know, we attend to our posture, especially if there's any new sitters here. please be sincere about these instructions that you've received. This is undermining any scant training that you may have received here. This always strikes people, they come for meditation instruction and they hear something like this. Hence, then they don't come back. Except some people feel like, I think that is more like what I need than some other thing to do. some other thing to achieve, some other thing to, like, get, make some progress in my life.

[40:12]

How about I have a place where I'm not doing anything like that, and I'm just not sure. And allowing, just what is, allowing this close-hearted ghost to just be here without trying to fix him. And open him and wisen him and enlighten him. But anyway, we do give some basic practices because it's hard to sit without some clarity, even just the physical instruction. So we do attend to our posture. It's a big part of our practice. And we take good care of our breathing. And we try to become quiet in our mind and empty and open and still. Coming completely still in body and mind. It's a wonderful place to put our effort. And then other techniques call to us.

[41:19]

Other directions emerge from zazen and we can follow them. They're all welcome. They're all guiding us. But the spirit is always to stay how we are rather than to go off towards something. That's the most important point for practice. Thank you for listening to this podcast offered by the San Francisco Zen Center. Our programs are made possible by the donations we receive. Please help us to continue to realize and actualize the practice of giving by offering your financial support. For more information, visit sfzc.org. and click giving. May we fully enjoy the Dharma.

[42:09]

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