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 think there's some new faces here this morning. Is anybody here for the first time? Welcome to Zen Mind Beginner's Temple. You've come on a day when we're having a one-day sitting, which means we started sitting at, I don't know, 5.30 this morning, and we'll basically sit till 6 o'clock tonight. So I was curious, how many of you are sitting the one-day sitting? And how many of you are sitting a one-day sitting for the first time?

[01:00]

Okay. Welcome to your first one-day sitting. So I'm gonna do a kind of a mixed talk. I'll talk a little bit about sitting and I'll talk a little bit about other things. So hopefully there'll be something for everyone. I was thinking, when I was thinking about someone who would sit their first one-day sitting, It reminded me of a kind of early story. When I first came here as a Zen student, I was living in the neighborhood, and I used to go for walks every day, and that's when the Museum of Modern Art was down in, I think, the opera building, and I would go in basically on all my walks and just walk around and look at things. One time they had a big Diebenkorn museum. Diebenkorn's a very famous California painter, and he had these large canvases about like six feet high by five feet wide, and there was like 20 of them spread around in this large room and I would walk, I walked through it like maybe three or four times while I was looking at other things in the museum over the days and then one time I was walking through and I just sort of stopped and I was looking at this picture and all of a sudden I could see it.

[02:12]

I could actually like see and I just kept looking and I kept seeing more of what was going on in this picture and my eyes would just start traveling on their own over parts of the picture And I spent maybe the next two hours wandering from canvas to canvas, and it was like I was seeing painting for the first time. And I don't know if any, if you're not familiar with Diebenkorn, imagine Monet's water lilies at the Orangerie in Paris. It's the same thing. You can wander into that room. He's got these large 30-foot murals on four walls, and there's nothing else in the room. And you can sit there for a couple hours and you will see like you haven't seen before. It's a stunning thing to have eyes and all of a sudden start to see with them. See things you hadn't seen before until somehow something brought your attention to them.

[03:14]

Something had been invisible until your eyes had been opened to it. And it's the same with meditation practice. Sitting on a cushion gives you a very intense, focused perspective on your mind, your thoughts, your emotions, your attitudes, your preferences, your body. And, you know, oddly, paying attention to your breathing as the main focus of your attention gives you this sort of unique view of your mind and thoughts. I mean, it's not like all of you aren't quite familiar with your mind, thoughts, emotions. I mean, you've been living with them for quite a few years. Not probably as many years as I've been living with them, but anyway, you've been living with them for quite a few years.

[04:18]

But somehow... this window that occurs when you sit meditation, when you sit in zazen, is different. So, of course, for those of you who are sitting a sashin today, a one-day sitting, you'll have a chance to experience that. Of course, what you'll experience I could say some things about, but actually I can't say very much about it because it will be so unique to each one of you. Some people will have marvelous, great, sweet emotional experiences. Some of you will be having agonizing knee pain. What I'm going to talk about today is I would like you to focus on

[05:20]

how your preferences, your preferences in your mind, your desires, affect your attitude. That is, like, for instance, you might be sitting there and wish, oh, I wish that pain would go away in my knee. It's really irritating me. And so that's a preference. You would prefer not to have the pain in your right knee. But it seems to be there. So there's obviously the pain in the right knee, and that causes suffering. And then there's the suffering that is caused by the desire for the pain not to be there. And you'll have lots of preferences that come up during the day. Like, oh, God, it's so noisy outside. These people are walking by the zendo. They're talking. Somebody's honking a horn. I wish it weren't so noisy. Now, the noise is not actually causing you that much pain, but the wish that it wasn't noisy, there's a kind of suffering in that, a kind of discomfort or unhappiness.

[06:36]

And all kinds of ways this could happen. There could be somebody sitting next to you that kind of fidgets a lot, you know, and they make noises. I could sit much better zazen if they weren't making that noises and I weren't sitting next to this person that's so fidgety. Then I would really be calm and I wouldn't be so unhappy. So it's a preference. I would prefer not to sit next to this person that's so... Or of course, even worse possibly, you're sitting next to someone who is like not moving at all. And you feel like, I'm such a terrible Zen student. This person is sitting so perfect. They must be weird. That's the only thing that can be going on with this person. And I wish they would move a little bit so I would feel better. So I'm suggesting that as part of your sitting today, you notice all these preferences you have about what's going on and wondering why

[07:46]

this is causing me suffering. And it won't be that when you leave the zendo, the suffering will stop. Because as soon as you walk outside and you say, oh, gosh, I'm so happy to be out of here. I think I'm going to have a really nice hot cup of coffee. And you go to the store and there's a long line and you get to the coffee and they're out of coffee for some reason, have to make another coffee and now you're unhappy again. Because every time you are set up this idea of some preference, you're bound to be disappointed. Basically, as soon as we want something, we're either going to get it, which is going to be great, until the next thing comes along that you want to have, and maybe you don't get it, and then you're unhappy. So in our everyday life, of course, this is not so difficult.

[08:50]

I mean, if you don't get a cup of coffee in the morning, you can figure out some solution. We have a little coffee area here in the temple in the morning, and sometimes I'm doing doksan or something, I'm late to breakfast, and I go to get a cup of coffee, and we have two pots, and sometimes they're just empty. There's no coffee. This is a big problem. I'm momentarily unhappy. Or I could sit there and make a pot of coffee and some other Zen students will walk in and we'll have a conversation about what's going on for two minutes while the pot of coffee is going on and everything's turned around. So those desires are not usually so problematic. But then there's other desires. There's other preferences like, for instance, I would like eternal happiness. I think the Dalai Lama says that's what we all want, eternal happiness.

[09:52]

Who doesn't want eternal happiness? There's probably a few Nietzschean students here who don't care about eternal happiness. I'm pretty sure if you want eternal happiness, that desire is not going to be satisfied a lot of the time. And then you're going to be unhappy. You'd like everybody to treat you with kindness. Probably not going to happen either. So even if you're not sitting the one-day sashim, you can, as you're going around your life today or the next week, you can kind of notice how many times you're preferring something to something else. You order that nice meal in a restaurant. You remember it well, how that fish was done, if you're eating fish. How that nice... carrot soup was done. And it comes out. And it's not like it was before.

[10:53]

It's not the same. They didn't put enough salt in it or something is wrong with this soup. So you're unhappy. A little bit unhappy. And the question is, can you live with that soup and maybe taste that soup in a different way? Of course, if it's too bad, you'll send it back and get some cauliflower soup maybe, and that will be better, but this is coming up all the time, and of course, it comes up much more dramatically in other ways. I thought I would bring forward a famous Zen koan on this subject. This is, I don't know what it is, maybe it's Koan number 43 in the Blue Cliff Records. It's called Dengshan's No Heat and Cold.

[11:57]

So Dengshan, by the way, was the founder of the sect in China that when it came to Japan became the Soto sect, which is the sect of Zen Buddhism that we practice here. So he's a very important figure in our lineage. A monk asked Dungshan, when heat and cold come, how can we avoid them? When heat and cold come, how can we avoid them? And Dungshan said, why don't you go to the place where there is no heat or cold? And the monk said, what is the place where there is no heat or cold? And Dungshan said, When it is hot, the heat kills you. When it is cold, the cold kills you. Wonderful little four-line teaching.

[13:00]

You might remember Dengshan. Dengshan, I mentioned, was the founder of the Soda sect, and you might remember the very famous interchange between his teacher and Yunnan, when Dengshan was leaving, Dengshan had studied with Yunnan for a long time, probably 20 years or something, and it was time for him to set off on his own. And they probably had some tea, sat down, and had a parting conversation. At the end of the conversation, Dengshan asked Yunnan, if in the future someone happens to ask whether I can describe the Master's truth or not, how should I answer them? That is, how would I tell them what is the truth of your teaching? What is your... teaching. Yunnan paused for a while and said, just this is it. Just this is it. Dengsham couldn't quite figure out what it was. He was kind of, couldn't, and so he left and was walking through the mountains and eventually he sort of awoke to what the meaning of just this is it was.

[14:11]

And I'm not going to talk about that today, but I just sort of threw it out there. Taigen Leighton, one of the teachers in our school of Zen Center, wrote a wonderful book about Dengshan, and he beautifully explored what Just This Is It is. But I'm just going to sort of mention it as one of the famous things that Dengshan... So Dengshan was a very important person, and so this story is worth telling. thinking some more about. So going back to it, when the monk asked Dengshan, when heat and cold come, how can we avoid them? So this is an obvious question. It's too hot, how can I get out of the heat? How can I avoid the heat? It's too cold, what can I do about the cold? So like if it's too hot, you could take off some of your clothes, go find a shady spot, But what if it's really hot?

[15:12]

Down at Tasar in the summertime sometimes it gets so hot that nothing you can do will solve the problem because there's no air conditioning and it is too hot. And in the wintertime sometimes at Tasar it's so cold there's nothing you can do about it because there's no real heat and it's too cold. But naturally we want to avoid the discomfort of it being too hot or too cold so what do we do? And so Dongshan says, well, why don't you go to a place where there is no heat or cold? Okay, where is this place where there's no heat or cold? So we might imagine, I'm sitting here, it's too hot, I'll just go to that numb place. You know, I'll go to that place in my mind where I don't feel anything. Well, that solved my no heat or no cold problem. Or maybe it's too hot, so I think I'll distract myself with daydreaming.

[16:17]

I'll imagine I'm traveling in Paris, looking at Monet's beautiful water lilies, going out into the park and having a nice baguette, cheese. Maybe since I'm on vacation, a small glass of red wine to go along with it. Oh, it's still hot. That's not working. I know what I'll do. I'll go to some bliss state. I'll use my meditation techniques and go into some blissful place, and I'll just be blissed out in this heat. So do you think that's what Dengshan's talking about here? I don't think so. You know that's not so because of the way I set this up, right? You guys are sharp folks. You're following all this, right? We're not going to a bliss state. We're not going on a trip to Paris. And we're not going to numb ourselves out. So the monk said, continuing his questioning, the monk says, what is the place where there is no heat or cold?

[17:25]

And Dung San said, and this is sort of the magic of these things, this kind of twist, when it's hot, the heat kills you. When it's cold, the cold kills you. That's the place where there's no hot or cold. So we're gonna get into this a little bit here. So I happened to find, through the magical use of the internet and all of the Suzuki Roshi lectures that we have on our archives that are out there somewhere, a commentary about Suzuki Roshi made on this little koan. And I'll read you some of it, so. This is a commentary on a lecture that Sikrishi gave in July 26, 1969. This harkens back to the early days in Zen Center. I don't remember, I didn't check whether it was at Tassar or the city center. Probably was at Tassar because it was probably pretty hot. So he goes, Dung Chan answered the question and said, when it is hot, you should kill the hot, and when it's cold, you should kill the cold.

[18:33]

It's a little different interpretation than Dungshan's Kills You, so I wonder if it's Suzuki or she's. To kill cold or hot, I don't know how you understand it. Maybe for a beginner, it's pretty hard to sit. Oh yes, you're trying to keep Keith in. Sarah records all the words I say so that Keith, who cannot hear, follows the lecture. And she's very kind when I go too fast to slow me down. Hi, Keith. It's probably good for me to slow down for you, too, also. So he says, maybe for a beginner, it is pretty hard to sit when your legs are painful. I think it is more difficult for someone to sit with painful legs in hot weather. But how you practice zazen in such difficulty, with such difficulty, is something you should understand.

[19:48]

This is a simple statement, but he's saying you should try to understand how to sit with painful legs in hot weather. How to practice with such a difficulty. That's something you should understand. He then goes on to relate an inspiring story about when he was young, in his early 20s, and he went off as a monk to Eheiji, which is the training temple in Japan. And when you first enter the training temple in Japan, you do something called dangaria, where you sit for five days, basically all day long. You know, when we're sitting this one-day sitting, we alternate 40 minutes of sitting, 10 minutes of walking, 40 minutes of sitting, 10 minutes of walking. So it's easier on your legs if you break it. But when you sit tangar, you don't have those breaks. You just sit straight through and then eat a little food and go have a little break and then sit straight through and eat a little food at dinner. So it can be quite painful.

[20:53]

And he goes on to tell about how, you know, he was sitting there in the cryptomeria, And of course, he realized, well, the cryptomeria tree isn't swinging. I'm in so much pain that my mind is swinging back and forth. But at the end of his sort of very funny description of all this, he says, but pain in your legs doesn't hurt you, so it is all right. Even though you feel painful, this kind of practice is necessary. And if you try to sit, you know you must have strong confidence and do not move. Even though what kind of difficulty you may have, you should try your best. Because English is not so good. But you get the feeling of it, right? And of course, we here don't say don't move. I mean, sometimes we do say don't move.

[21:54]

But if your knees are too painful, well, please move. Maybe try to sit with your difficulty a little longer than you might naturally because Sikuroshi is encouraging you to do your best and to see what's going on with difficulty, pain, hot. How much of the suffering is actually caused by your desire to move away from it? So he goes on. To kill the pain or cold or hot. See how quickly you move from hot and cold to pain? Just right off the bat. To kill the pain or cold or hot means to become one with the pain. So instead of going into the bliss state, instead of daydreaming about Paris, instead of numbing out,

[22:55]

The way we're going to do it is we're going to become one with the pain. We're going to become one with the heat. We're going to become one with the cold. You should become one with the pain. Not your body's pain, but pain. And it is not you who feel the pain, because you are one with the pain. That which exists is just pain. So I'm sure this is not unfamiliar territory to you. Many times, it's not just pain, but many emotions you sometimes feel. Well, let's say, have you ever had the feeling of gratitude that was so complete that there was no separation between you and gratitude? You were just gratitude. You were the pure feeling of gratitude.

[23:59]

There was no you observing yourself feeling gratitude. You were just gratitude. So this way, this way is to move into your life. And the way you move into your life is you quit observing it and become one with it. This can be true of any emotion you're having, and you will have many emotions today while you're sitting, and you'll have many emotions today when you're wandering around in this marvelous city, listening to the honking horns, eating the marvelous food, walking in the parks. Or maybe you're going to walk over to beautiful Mount Tam and see some trees. I hope you do. So getting back to our koan, so when it is hot, the heat kills you.

[25:04]

This is kind of very dramatic, right? But it means the person who's standing outside yourself, complaining about the heat, that one you get rid of. And then you're just living your life, and heat is just hot. Sikureshi goes on some more about clothes. You know, it's difficult to wear so much clothes. Maybe you should take off your clothes. Maybe you should do this thing. He says, that's all right. You can take off your clothes. But if you are determined to sit, you should not try to find some easy way. The only way is to sit where you are and find out the complete, absolute composure where you sit. That is how we sit, and that is so-called shikantaza. So it doesn't matter. It's hot. I got a pain in my knee. The person's snorting next to me, honking horns outside.

[26:10]

I'm going to just sit in complete composure. He says, so a Soda priest would translate to kill, to kill cold or hot. When it is hot, you should be hot Buddha. When it is cold, you should be cold Buddha. I hope you are all hot and cold Buddhas today as you're sitting down there. If you're willing to be hot or you're willing to have a little pain, a little misery in your life, it won't be so bad. It's when you can't take that misery. That's when it gets worse. This is what it's like to be alive, to feel and live. all the multiple different emotions and experiences that are yours as a human being to live. Okay.

[27:16]

I thought also I'd talk not just about our little preference, picking and choosing that goes on in Sashin, but also the picking and choosing that goes on when we're wandering around in the world. Two weeks ago I was on vacation with my wife up in British Columbia. We were visiting some friends in Whistler, which is a ski resort up there. And we were driving back down to Vancouver for our last night stay before flying back, and just this incredible storm blew in. There was rain, my car was all over the road in a 60-mile drive, tree limbs everywhere. In fact, there are so many tree limbs blown down that the bridge that comes into Vancouver ends up in Stanley Park, and they had to close the bridge for an hour while they cleaned all the debris off the road. So I'm sitting in a traffic jam for an hour, and we had, of course, made a reservation in this beautiful hotel in this section of Vancouver that looks back over the city, and there was this marvelous restaurant there with this nice, beautiful patio.

[28:22]

where you could sit and have this magnificent dinner, our last night dinner after our 10-day trip. And after this horrendous drive through the rain and storm and the long wait on the bridge, I could not wait to get... We were talking about, we will have that marvelous dinner. And we walk into this hotel and, first of all, the patio is closed because it's raining. And second, there's this huge wedding going on that's reserved the whole hotel. And our marvelous little... seat right on the edge of the water was now relegated to some place in the back of the bar next to the busing station. This was not our preference. This was not what we had desired, how we had desired to spend our last night together on our vacation. And I was exhausted and tired and kind of grumpy on top of this, so this was sort of it for me. Anyway, of course, they happily tried to find reservations at all the other beautiful spots nearby, all of which were reserved because it was, I don't know, Saturday night, I think.

[29:30]

Yeah, Saturday night. We trudged off and found some little local place, sat down, started to eat some food, and there was a couple next to us, kind of our age-ish, a little bit. I don't know how we got into a conversation, how you sometimes get into a conversation when you're in one of those small neighborhood places where the tables are right next to each other. She turned out to be a court, a justice of some local British Columbia Supreme Court or something and he was a lawyer. Somehow we started to have this magical conversation and they were interested in our political views and I was They invited us back to their home, which was five blocks away, which was this beautiful neighborhood in Vancouver with this marvelous modern home and spent some time sitting around talking. Had just the most marvelous evening. Totally out of the blue, right?

[30:31]

Because that's usually, well, it doesn't usually, but sometimes it's quite often that when you don't get what you want, you get something else that's even better. Isn't that right? Something new, something totally unexpected. I mean, it would have been wonderful to have a romantic dinner with my wife, reminding ourselves of all our wonderful things that had happened during our trip by ourselves looking at you. But this was also marvelously interesting and part of what happens when you travel. And for some reason I was reminded of this quote from the Dalai Lama. Remember quote from the Dalai Lama. Remember that not getting what you want is sometimes a wonderful stroke of luck. We get so invested in our preference. I really want this. So the question is, you know, if you're so fixated on that, that you were disappointed that you didn't get what you want, you've limited your life.

[31:40]

You've limited your life to what your mind is. has imagined what your life can be. But your life is much, much bigger than what your mind can imagine it can be. And sometimes when you're disappointed by not having your preference fulfilled, you have an opportunity to actually experience something completely new. So I think we should hold our preferences a little bit lightly. This isn't true just of vacations. This is also true of the course of your life. I don't know, I guess I could tell one more story. My life has never turned out like I thought it would. And mostly that's been a good thing. I remember I was in the software business and I had just become president of a small software company. We were gonna become a dominant player in the word processing business.

[32:42]

As being president of the software company for three months, I realized that I was going to be crushed by Microsoft and WordPerfect. WordPerfect was another gargantuan player back then who later got crushed by Microsoft also. But anyway, it was pretty clear that we needed a different strategy, and we had developed a little grammar checker that we were going to add to our word processor, so we decided we would go in their grammar checking business and sell grammar checkers to everybody to add to their word processors. We had this marvelous grammar checker, but by the time we got to the market, there were two other competitors that got there before us, and we couldn't get any distribution. There were only a couple of distributors in those days. It was a small world, and they just said, we got two, they're doing fine, we don't need you. Well, this wasn't just a preference that made me feel bad. This was a complete disaster. This was our whole company was riding on this. We'd given everything up for this little grammar checker. But anyway, we had... while we were busy trying to get into distribution, had placed a little ad in one of the magazines.

[33:45]

In those days, there were magazines that went out to all WordPerfect users and all Microsoft Word users, and you could place ads in it. And we said, if you'd like a grammar checker, call us up. And all of a sudden, we started getting all these calls from people saying, well, we're interested in your grammar checker. So we didn't have distribution through the retail channel, but we were starting to... So we said, wow, that's... Oh, we should learn something about direct marketing. So we hired a consultant and we managed to get some lists of all WordPerfect users and Word users and WordStar users and we did this little quick mailing out to them saying, would you like a grammar checker for your word processor? And I remember the day when I was at a Comdex trade show and I called back to the office and she said, Ed, there's just piles of mail here. All the people that want to buy our grammar checker. Anyway, to make a very long story short, all of a sudden we started selling grammar checkers like crazy into the marketplace.

[34:49]

And pretty soon we figured, well, let's sell dictionaries. I licensed the American Heritage Dictionary from Houghton Mifflin. We sold them on CD-ROMs direct. Before long, I built an entire direct marketing business on selling direct to consumers in the software business. And that was going great, and then guess what happened? The Internet came along. And what used to be called junk mail started to be called Internet marketing. A career was made out of a big problem that I had, that I couldn't get distribution through the normal retail channel. And so I had to figure out some other way to do it. So a lot of times there'll be some enormous... problem in your job, some enormous problem somewhere in your life, and you'll be forced to figure out another way to do it. And many times that other way to do it will be, what did the Dalai Lama say?

[35:52]

A wonderful stroke of luck. Hmm. So I would invite you to explore all these preferential choices, these picking and choosing, these I wish it was this way, I wish it wasn't that way. Try to actually understand what it is. What is this energy? And I think what you'll find if you really pay attention to it, there's an energy underneath. this desire, this preference that's leading you somewhere that is actually the future of your life.

[36:53]

It's just not what your mind thinks is where you should end up. That energy that's underneath your preference is driving you to some place. And if you're open enough to what it is, because many times it isn't what you think it is, it isn't the idea that you attach to that energy, your preference, that's something else. you'll find yourself where you're supposed to be. I think I'm going to skip a whole bunch of this stuff that is very entertaining, but This all sounds great, doesn't it? Let's just be totally in the present moment, accepting whatever it is, however we landed here, with no preference at all.

[38:00]

There's only two problems. Problem number one, how do you do it? Great idea, but let's face it, that's not exactly what's happening most of the time. You've got a preference, It doesn't turn out to be what you want. You don't just like, oh, well, this is cool. It's hot here now. I'm really digging this heat. That's not exactly what happens. So, you know, this is not going to come as a big surprise, and since I only have about five minutes left, I'll just sort of summarize it. Our solution over here in the Zen Center is Zen practice. You sit Zazen when it's hot sometimes, and you find out how to let heat kill you. You have a bunch of friends called the Sangha that encourages you to continue your practice and reminds you when you're complaining about the coffee machine, not having coffee in it, that, oh, it's okay, let's make some coffee together. You read some wonderful Chinese koans about hot and cold, think about that.

[39:08]

And most important, during your daily activities, you notice... wow, look at all the different ways my preferences, my picking and choosing is causing me suffering, and maybe I should pay attention to that. And this is, by the way, a lifetime activity because our personality structures, which were built when we were young, are so powerful that it will take you a long time to get to the bottom of all of this. I mean, some things will happen fast, and your life will be improved quite quickly, and you'll be more joyful, but it's still a long process. So, problem one solved. Zen practice. Trickier part, problem two. Sometimes what's going on is not just a matter of accepting it, because you need to change it.

[40:10]

You know, You're in an abusive situation. It's not acceptable just to say, oh, this is okay, I'm going to... There's something unethical going on. There's something wrong. There's a lot of good and bad that's happening in the world, and sometimes you have to act. So what about that? What about when you actually have to change what's going on? You know, I was thinking about... I was... I had a fortunate chance to go up in the Sierras for a few days with some of my Zen friends, and we were hiking up in these beautiful Sierra Mountains, and there were these... You know, it's always amazing to me on these cliffs where there's this tree that's living in this little crevice, you know, growing there, you know, with no dirt around it at all, exposed to every worst winters in the world, and it's growing along, and some of them get quite old, you know, and I think...

[41:12]

Wow, that poor tree to choose such a lousy location to grow in. I mean, it's just like some seed blew off this lodgepole pine and landed in a little crack and managed to get a hold on life. It's stuck with it. That tree is stuck there. It's making a valiant go of it. And it doesn't have any choice when the harsh winter comes. It's got to stick it out. We are different. We're human beings. We do have choice. And we can make the choice to make the change that's needed when we have to do it. But the proposition I'm putting forward to you today is the place where you make that change from is the place where you're at. Not the place that you wished you were at, preferred you were at, but the place that you actually ended up in So first accept and embrace where you are right now.

[42:18]

And it will be clear to you from that place when it's not right what the change that needs to happen, how to go forward from that place. You go forward from where you are, not from where you wish you were. There's a famous saying, Dogen Zenji says, if you fall on the ground, stand up by the ground. Stand up by the ground you fell down on. So I'm going to end this little talk with, of course, in these koan stories in the Blue Cliff Records, there are all kinds of commentaries, and they usually have a comment by telling another story. So here's a comment on this story. A monk asked, Sui Wei, what is the meaning of the patriarch coming from the West? This is a standard question. What is the meaning of Zen? Wei said, when no one comes, I will tell you. When no one comes, I will tell you. And then he walked into the garden. The monk followed him into the garden and said, there is no one right here.

[43:26]

Please, teacher, tell me. Pretty good monk. So the teacher bought that and Wei pointed to the bamboo and said, this stock is so tall and this stock is so short. This is a tall stock of bamboo. This is a short stock of bamboo. And as these stories always go, the monk was suddenly enlightened. So, of course, in this story, being no one is what we were talking about before. You're not standing outside of your life wishing it was something else. You're completely, fully engaged in your life. So this monk was stepping into the garden with the teacher saying, I'm all in There's no me outside of this. I am completely one with the moment here. What to do? And the teacher said, here's a short piece of bamboo, here's a long piece of bamboo.

[44:28]

Meaning, sometimes you need a long piece of bamboo to solve your problem. And sometimes you need a short piece of bamboo. And you, being a human being, will make that choice. Take the short piece of bamboo if that's what you need. Or to put it in more real ways, sometimes this is the right thing to do and sometimes that is the right thing to do. And you will choose to do the right thing to do in this present moment. This is the ethical thing to do. This is not the ethical thing to do. You'll choose the ethical thing to do. Thank you very much for your time this morning. I hope you enjoy the rest of your sitting and the rest of your day. Thank you for listening to this podcast offered by the San Francisco Zen Center.

[45:30]

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 sfzc.org and click Giving. May we fully enjoy the Dharma.

[45:52]

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