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. Good morning. So I thought I would like to offer us a minute or so of silence, rain silence, to hold in our hearts those... who are feeling some sadness or suffering this morning, and also for the suffering of this world. So I'm going to ring the bell, and then I'll ring it again in a little while. This is the teaching by Zen Zen Responder Suzuki Roshi.

[03:29]

Our effort and practice should be directed from achievement to non-achievement. Usually when you want to do something, you want to achieve something. You attach to some results. Moving from achievement to non-achievement means to be rid of unnecessary and bad results of such effort. When there is no gaining idea in what you do, then you do something. In Zazen, what you are doing is not for the sake of anything. You may feel as though you are doing something special, but actually it's only the expression of your true nature. It is the activity that appeases your innermost desire. But as long as you think you are practicing Zazen for the sake of something else, for some achievement, that is not true practice. A few mornings ago, I was walking home from the Zendo, and the moon was standing all alone in a cloudless sky.

[04:47]

It seemed like a very long time since the clouds had made way for the moon to shine. So seeing the moon reminded me of the first time I came to Zen Center, about 45 years ago now. And I was invited to a full moon ceremony up on the roof of the Page Street building in San Francisco. So before the chanting and the bowing began, the person who was leading the ceremony told a story. of how the image of a bunny got onto the moon. So if you look carefully, next time you can see the moon, and it's full, the bunny is clearly there, with her long ears, rounded body, and fluffy white tail. We were also told that this story was one of many Jataka tales, tales of a yogi by the name of Sumedha, who had vowed to live endless lifetimes as a bodhisattva until he became a fully awakened Buddha in order to be of the greatest benefit to living beings.

[05:59]

So years later, after I had moved into the Zen Center and began studying and listening to teachings, I learned that Sumedha's journey from one lifetime to the next gave him an opportunity to develop great compassion grounded in the discipline of self-awareness and, dare I say, self-sacrifice. So the story of Sumedha's journey appears in a book by Okamura Roshi called Living by Bao. And at the end of the story, we learn that the yogi who had been reborn again and again in many forms and many places over many eons arrived at last in this Saha world, as a baby human named by his people, Shakyamuni, meaning the sage of the Shakyamuni tribe. So I've told the story of the bunny in the moon a number of times over the years because it had such a great impact on me at that very early time in my practice, my wish to practice.

[07:10]

And it's a part of why I am still here. So I want to tell it to you. began this morning at a time in my life when I am once again about to take on a new and yet barely discernible incarnation, so to speak. The practice of being given and then relinquishing our positions is one of the main training tools used by our Zen temple. Often those who stay in residence change positions nearly every year. So I was going to use myself as an example of this. I started my life at Zen Center in the city as a Tassajara bakery worker. And then eventually a hostess at Green's Restaurant. At Tassajara, I was the child care person and then kitchen crew, construction crew, office, guest cook, head cook. And at Green Gulch, I was head cook, Eno, director, tonto, and abbess.

[08:11]

45 years of change. So each time there was a change, the old skills and relationships dissolved before the new ones were in place. And finding a way to remain balanced and calm wasn't so easy when all the things that I counted on to identify myself to be me had changed. The one thing, the one core value that we hope doesn't change as we change is the vow that we've taken to live for the benefit of all beings. The Bodhisattva vow. So last Friday, many of you know, Central Abbott Ed Sattazan and I stepped down from our final positions at Zen Center to give way, as we all must, to the generation that gratefully is taking our place. to make way for our new abbots in the city center, Mako Volko, and here at Green Gulch, Jiryu Richmond-Weiler.

[09:20]

It was quite a weekend for those of you who were around for it. There were celebrations and congratulations and a lot of very delicious food. Suzuki Roshi's son and grandson came from Japan to help with the events, as did many other senior teachers from all over the country. Everyone in the community helped to make this change in our leadership as light and loving as possible. So that's our training model here at Zen Center. And here's the training model of our Zen ancestors that's been based on Sumedha's mythic journey to awakening. His story as a bunny begins in a dark forest in India where four good friends have gone to live the holy life. There's an otter. Fox, a monkey, and the bunny. And together they had taken the Bodhisattva vow to do good and to bring happiness to whoever might come their way.

[10:22]

So to test their virtue, Chakra, who is the king of the gods, disguises himself as a beggar and goes into the forest to find them. When the four friends see the old man, they hurry about to bring comfort to him in whatever way they can. The otter runs off and returns with seven silver fish, the monkey an armful of ripe mangoes, and the fox a pail of milk that had been left unguarded on a porch of a nearby cabin. But the bunny who lived on grass could think of nothing to offer a human to eat. And finally she thought, I will ask the old man to build a fire and then find something delicious for him to cook. And as the flames grew higher, the bunny suddenly knew what she could give. I can give myself. And filled with joy, she leapt toward the blaze. With that, the king of heavenly beings reached out his hands and caught the little rabbit before she was burned by the flames.

[11:30]

The king then said, While many cannot even give up fading flowers without misgivings, This one's lofty heart is like the shiny disk of the full moon. And with that, the king, deeply touched by the bunny's virtue, used a nearby mountain to form her likeness on the face of the moon for everyone to see. It is said that the lunar image is still draped in the smoke that arose when the bunny cast herself toward the fire. So this story of the bodhisattva willingly giving her own life for the welfare of another arrived in my life at a time when I was worn out trying to get someone or attain something that would make me truly happy. It was such an extraordinary idea and yet so simple that giving could be the true source of happiness and I then decided to give it a try.

[12:33]

This story of kindness and generosity helped me to confront the two competing tendencies that compel us as human beings when we're confronted by the limitations of both this human world and the natural world. There are limitations of money and housing, parking, true love, fresh water, and fresh air. is compelling us to give. So this is where the lifelong practice and training of the Bodhisattva begins, with the realization that our self-centered behaviors only lead to greater selfishness, and that a more kind, just, and generous life lived by the Bodhisattva vow leads to ever greater happiness for ourselves and for others. And yet it's one thing for me to tell you that, and it's another, For you to discover it for yourselves as Sumedha did.

[13:36]

The best way to explore the practice of giving is to look at the other side of giving. The side of taking and possessing. That seems to have come naturally to us at a very early age. My mommy. My candy. My toys. I told the story some years ago about watching one of our little ones here at Green Gulch. running into the dining room at lunchtime, pushing past the people who were patiently waiting there in line and grabbing some bread and then running back out. His dad said to him, you need to wait with me at the end of the line. And the boy looked at his dad like he was insane. Why do I have to wait? I don't want to wait. I want my bread now. This is a very hard one to explain to a child, let alone... To grown-ups at certain times. So not to be possessive of anything is closely related to not being possessed by anyone or anything, as if we're under some kind of magical spell.

[14:45]

Which is why it is said that greed arises from delusion and from intoxication with our delusions, those mysterious and compelling products of our own imagination. as if there is a dream that's dreaming us, which at times becomes a nightmare all around. At the finale of the new moon and the full moon ceremonies, which our community performs each month, there's a recitation of the 16 Bodhisattva precepts. And among those precepts is this one. I vow not to be possessive of anything. I vow... not to be possessive of anything, which sometimes we follow with this teaching verse written by our founder, Dogen Zenji. One phrase, one verse, that is the 10,000 things and the 100 grasses. One Dharma, one realization is all Buddhas and ancestors.

[15:51]

Therefore, from the beginning, there has been no stinginess at all. In the dictionary, possessive is defined as showing a desire to own things and an unwillingness to share what one already owns. Greed is defined as showing an intense and selfish desire for things, especially for sex, wealth, and power. So this precept of not being possessive of anything is primordial in that it brings our attention to to the most basic ideas we have about ourself and about the objects that we think belong to me. So even though the childish forms of possessiveness over ownership of candy and toys give way to skillfully transformed adult forms, we continue unconsciously through most of our life to refer to things and people as our own.

[16:54]

My opinions. My daughter. my housing, my robes, and my Zendo seat, which has recently been transferred to our new abbot. And although I really like Juryu, and I support him completely in his new role, it is challenging for me to see his Zafu sitting there on my seat. Don't tell him I said that. So it is no wonder that great wars have been fought to acquire or defend what I say belongs to me. Those mass movements of greed, hate, and delusion that are totally terrifying the world, even as we sit here quietly in the rain. The Buddha gave his teachings as an antidote to the usual ways that we behave and think. When we vow not to be possessive of anything,

[17:54]

that vow somehow acts like a radioactive isotope inside of our bodies, causing those grasping impulses to vibrate and shimmer, just as all of the 10 prohibitory precepts are designed to do. There's the shimmering of our impulse to kill or to steal, to sexualize, to lie or intoxicate ourselves, impulses to slander or brag, to rage, or to express disrespect to the matrix that gives us our life. It's by means of those vibrations that we can begin to see how we humans are literally built, as we say, to seize the day. How our ears, our nose, our mouth, our hands, and our eyes go after whatever is right in front of us. Can I eat it? Can I buy it? Can I make love to it? Can I take it home for later?

[18:55]

And yet, as Dogen says, to carry ourselves, our self-centered selves forward and experience myriad things is delusion. That myriad things come forth and realize themselves is awakening. We are here, as the Buddha saw on the morning of his awakening, as receivers, as caregivers of this beautiful world. and all of its tender living parts, as guardians of the galaxies like Sumedha, for however many eons it may take. This is our vow. There's an interesting exercise I'd like to offer to you to try that might help you to spot the tendency toward self-centeredness and self-clinging, both of which are at the core of our suffering. You can try dropping the personal pronouns. When talking about activities involving yourself.

[19:56]

For example, anger is arising rather than I'm getting angry. Or bringing flowers to a friend brightened the day. While eating lunch, a crow flew overhead. And so on. In some sense, by leaving out the possessive pronouns, we can see how language itself produces a sense of an own being. of me and of mine. When we leave those pronouns out, the focus of awareness shifts toward the action and toward the object of awareness and away from the actor, the subject of the action. The language of possession is so familiar and yet upon analysis is fraught with inaccuracy and ambiguity, fraught with self-clinging, defensiveness, and an all-around sense of insufficiency. Can I ever really get enough of what I need or I deserve?

[20:59]

Seemingly not. So even while having these teachings in mind and practicing with them, very sincerely, it's possible to simply downshift to more subtle levels of possessiveness, such as acquiring virtues. like purity or holiness or perfect Zazen attendance, what Okamura Roshi calls my practice, my Dharma position, my Shakyamuni Buddha. This subtle possessiveness is what Suzuki Roshi is referring to as gaining ideas, which in our case, as Dharma students, arises with an intense desire to awaken, which is kind of odd. since for many of us awakening is exactly why we are here. That demand on ourselves to awaken when taken to an extreme is likened in Zen to swallowing a red hot iron ball.

[22:04]

We can't spit it up and we can't get it out. And although it's not unwholesome desiring to awaken, it's a pretty good guess that desire itself is precisely what's thwarting our effort. Just like those woven finger puzzles, if you remember those, the harder you pull, the tighter they get. So freedom, on the other hand, requires us to go the other way, to give up, to let go, to raise the white flag. Or as Pema Trojan said, renunciation is to renounce that which doesn't work. There's an important story in a text called The Transmission of Light, Chapter 52, by Kezan Jokin, who's the third generation after Dogen, which is about Dogen. A story that speaks loudly to this very point of letting go. Once during meditation, sitting late at night, Dogen's Chinese teacher, Ru Jing, said to the assembly of monks, Zen study is the shedding of mind and body.

[23:16]

Shinjin Datsuraku in Japanese. Hearing this, suddenly Dogen was greatly enlightened. He went right to the abbot's room and lit incense. Ryujin asked him, what are you burning incense for? Dogen said, my body and mind have been shed. Body and mind shedding has arrived. Shinjin Datsuraku Rai. Rujing said, body and mind shed. Shed body and mind. Dogen said, this is a temporary byway. Don't approve of me arbitrarily. Rujing said, I'm not. Dogen said, what is that which isn't given arbitrary approval? Rujing said, Shedding body and mind. Shinjin datsuraku.

[24:19]

Dogen said nothing and bowed. Rijing said, the shedding is shed. Datsuraku, datsuraku. At that time, Rijing's attendant said, this is no small matter that a foreigner has attained such a state. Rijing said, how many times has he been pummeled here? Liberated, dignified, thunder roars. So I'd like to walk through this exchange in the way my teacher Tenshin Roshi did with us a few years back, starting with the two most important terms that appear here in Japanese, words that are key to Dogen's later writing. The first word is shinjin, shinjin, translated as body-mind. which Dogen repeatedly teaches, are not separate. One whole body-mind, as though one word, body-mind. The second word, datsuraku, is a term meaning dropping, renouncing, or detaching.

[25:28]

This term can refer to the moment of spiritual release or liberation, suggesting an activity that is both passive or effortless and at the same time, purposeful or determined. So once again, here's the exchange, step by step, between Dogen and his teacher that led to Dogen's awakening. In step one, Ru Jing says to one of the monks who is sleeping during evening meditation, To study Zen is to cast off body-mind. Why are you engaged in single-minded seating slumber? rather than single-minded seating meditation. It was on hearing this reprimand that Dogen had his great awakening, Daigo in Japanese. In step two, Dogen visits the teacher's room where he says to Rujing, body-mind dropped, has arrived. Shinjin datsuraku rai.

[26:32]

Rai means arrived. In step three, Rujing responds, body-mind dropped. Dropped body-mind. Meaning, don't get stuck on either side of dropping or being dropped, or any other dualistic proposition. Don't get stuck anywhere. In step four, Dogen says to his teacher, this is a temporary byway, don't approve of me arbitrarily. Rujing says, I'm not. Dogen says, what is that which isn't given arbitrary approval? So Dogen, who has already received Dharma transmission in the Rinzai Zen tradition, has made a long and dangerous voyage in a tiny boat to China across the Eastern Sea to find a teacher to authenticate his awakening. And nothing less will do. And so he says to Ru Jing, don't approve of me arbitrarily.

[27:34]

In step five, Ru Jing says, dropping body-mind, Datsuraku Shinjin, is that which isn't given arbitrary approval. In step six, Dogen bows. Enacting a ritual form of practice, whole body practice, to express the harmony of body and mind, Shinjin. Ritual expressions have no marks and leave no traces, just bowing. just chanting, just wearing Buddha's robe. In step seven, Ru Jing says, the shedding is shed. Datsuraku, Datsuraku. So this is the final authentic approval that Dogen was seeking. In 1225, Ru Jing recognizes Dogen as a Dharma successor in the lineage of Soto Zen. in which the primary teaching, as Suzuki Roshi says, is no gaining ideas.

[28:37]

The thing that is being talked about in this exchange between Dogen and his teacher, called body-mind, is the person. Just this person. And we each have one. The action or function of this person is dropping body and mind. Awakening again and again. Drop. Drop. Like rain on the roof of Green Dragon Temple. And as Dogen later summarized in this poem that I have often shared, this slowly drifting cloud is pitiful. What dream walkers we humans have become. Awakened, I hear the one true thing. Black rain on the roof of Fukakusa Temple. So here's another poem that Dogen wrote, also relating to his own awakening.

[29:41]

In the heart of the night, the moonlight framing a small boat drifting, tossed not by the waves, nor swayed by the breeze. In the heart of the night, the moonlight framing a small boat drifting, tossed not by the waves, nor swayed by the breeze. So the drifting boat in this poem has been cast off from the harbor, and yet all the while is enveloped in the light of the moon. The boat, like Dogen, is still in and of the world while being cast off by the world, adrift on the very same waters that hold him afloat, just like our tiny blue planet adrift in outer space. And yet by drifting, releasing, dropping, the boat is no longer at the mercy of the elements or disturbed by the waves.

[30:44]

Waves symbolize the objects of our attachments, things that we own. Nor is it swayed by the breeze, symbolizing ignorance and desire for things we don't own yet. The moonlight is both a symbol of our longing and a source of our comfort during times of turmoil and grief. In Buddhist terms, moonlight signifies both compassion, comfort, and wisdom, the casting off of delusion. This process of shedding or molting of useless or unwanted material like old skin or baby teeth, tears, old sorrows, or worn-out clothing implies both a continuous as well as a purposeful occurrence, processes that make way for something new and unencumbered, like joyfully giving my seat to our new abbot. In his later teaching, Dogen refers to Zazen when he quotes Ru Jing as saying, to cast off body-mind is to sit in single-minded meditation.

[31:53]

When practicing Zazen single-mindedly, the five desires dissolve, and the five defilements are removed. When practicing Zazen single-mindedly, the five desires dissolve and the five defilements are removed. So Zazen in Dogen's teaching is purposeful and all-inclusive, an alignment with our true nature, with our inborn Buddha nature. And as with dropping body-mind, Zazen is not an automatic or involuntary act. It requires some determination, some resolve. and some concentration repeated over time, an energetic commitment of our life that lies at the heart of the decision to practice. Body-mind zazen is one whole being zazen. Reflecting what Chakyamuni Buddha said at the time of his own shedding, the entire universe in the ten directions is the true human body.

[33:01]

And just as the Buddha taught to his young disciples in his first sermon, Ru Jing teaches Dogen, that dropping body-mind does not result in the attainment of some new state of mind, just something like enlightenment or Buddhahood, but rather in the removal of ignorance and attachments, the two primary causes of suffering. Noble Truth Number Two Shinjin Datsuraku is not an act of maintaining or of acquiring, but of letting go. To renounce gaining ideas is something that we need to be reminded of again and again, reminded to bring our awareness and our affection to something that is already here and is already happening. There is nothing to seek or to gain that is not already ours and has been from the very beginning. from that first breath of fresh air. It's not my air and not my breath, but gifts that have been given to this nameless person from the entire world and the entire world from the entire universe.

[34:15]

And therefore, the celebration of our awakening into life happens in each moment of every day as we fully live it. It's just that we can't own it. We can't have it. None of it. And yet, with a fullness of heart, we can give it away. And so to this end, here's a story about Ryokan, a quiet and unconventional Soto Zen Buddhist priest who lived much of his life as a hermit, writing poetry, drawing calligraphy, and playing with children. Zen master Ryokan lived in a little hut at the foot of a mountain. One evening a thief visited the hut, only to discover there was nothing in it to steal. Ryokan returned home and caught him. You may have come a long way to visit me, he told the prowler, and you should not return empty-handed.

[35:16]

Please take my clothes as a gift. The thief was bewildered. He took the clothes and slunk away. Ryokan sat naked, gazing at the night sky. Poor fellow, he mused, I wish I could give him this beautiful moon. 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.

[36:06]

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