This podcast is offered by the San Francisco Zen Center on the web at www.sfzc.org. Our public programs are made possible by donations from people like you. Good evening. So, tonight, I... I'm going to try to present some teachings about right effort. And right doesn't mean right and wrong type right. Right means upright or aligned effort, a kind of effort that has wisdom and compassion in it that we can make in a sustainable way in our practice and in our lives. So this is part of a... the study of this right effort for me is part of taking care of the retreat that Brian and I are teaching.

[01:08]

But it's also part of taking care of Tassahara, and it's also part of taking care of all of us friends of Dharma who come from everywhere, all over the country and all over the world to this place, live together for a day, two days, a month, 10 years, 40 years, or whatever it is. And every time we come here, it's like we leave the usual way of thinking about things. And every time we go, Whether it's 42 years or a night and a day, it feels like a dream. But it's the kind of dream that has a profound and lasting effect on our lives.

[02:15]

And we can leave this place, whether we leave for a day or whether we leave for the rest of our lives, and give to our family, to our friends, to our community of practitioners and the general community at large, back to the country, back to the world, back anywhere we go, we can give the teachings of complete peace and complete comfort as we have understood them in our time here. And we need to understand that Tassajara is a shared place, a community resource, and that every single person in this room or who can hear this talk or who can't hear this talk, but everyone who has ground flour or provided manure or, you know, taken a photo,

[03:27]

or stayed here, or painted a cabin, or whatever it is. Every single one of those people shares in this community resource. In this room, there are residents today. There are supporters of Tassajara and of San Francisco Zen Center. lineage holders in this and other traditions. There are people from New York, from various places in Germany or other places. And all of those people not just share intellectually, but share in a practical way. And Many of us have a practice that we do at home.

[04:28]

So right effort is something that we can all benefit from, that we can all practice and that we can all work with. And in the teaching of the Buddha, it's part of the Noble Eightfold Path that leads to the cessation of suffering. So the question of what do we have to do to really... let go of suffering in our lives was the one that the Buddha was interested in. Would you like some water or something? Don't worry about it, but... You sure? Okay. Because water can be gotten. It's, you know, it's important for us to know things. about each other and to respond. And this is part of effort. So, Suzuki Roshi wrote about effort. Suzuki Roshi, as you probably know by now, was the founder of this school and this lineage in the United States.

[05:39]

He came here in 1959 to be the Jushoku or abbot of Soko-ji. Soko-ji is a Soto-zen temple, and at that time it was in a building that had been a former synagogue on the corner of Bush and Laguna streets in San Francisco. And at that time that Suzuki Roshi came, it was being... It was a community of Nisei and Sansei practitioners, and they had invited Suzuki Roshi from Japan to take over and be head of the temple. And Suzuki Roshi had long wanted to come to the United States, and he had asked his teacher when he was young, and his teacher said, absolutely not, which only made him want to do it more.

[06:44]

And so he finally did. And he was a good head priest of the temple. And one of the things that he did was to sit zazen every morning. And several times he was out on the street opening the temple, opening the door, and people would walk by and say, who is this person? And who are you? And what are you doing? And he would say something like, I sit every morning and you're welcome to come. And he did, and they were. And eventually the group of hippie pilgrims got so large that the congregation asked if it couldn't find another home. And one of Suzuki Roshi's San Francisco students, And a number of people actually were looking for a place to put the new temple, and they found a place on 300 Page Street.

[07:53]

And we bought that temple and used it. And just the year before that, in 1967, Suzuki Roshi had been thinking of, would it be possible for us to establish a monastery where people could... for some time in silence and in peace together that would enrich the atmosphere of the United States and make it possible for us to understand the values of Buddhism. And at that time, the bakers were traveling on what they thought was a deserted road, and they... passed a giant tree and saw a grandfather tree, which is still there, and then got to this place, which at that time was a fairly well-used little resort with a bar, which was the old Zendo, now the student eating area, and a garden, which was right here under where you're sitting.

[09:11]

A number of little run-down cabins, which are nicer now. And not all these rocks. And anyway, Suzuki Roshi came and immediately said, this is it. And they had their first practice period here the following year. And people have been practicing here continuously ever since. I think, was last practice period the hundred-something? Hundred? The fall will be the hundredth practice period here. And the summer is also a kind of practice period which is about giving and receiving, mutual giving and receiving in a different way. So the winter practice periods are a form of vertical transmission where we try to recreate the traditional form of Soto Zen practice. And the summer is a form of horizontal transmission where we try to spread the practice that we learned and make it available and mutually available.

[10:23]

And everyone who comes in joins in that effort. Well, what makes it right effort? How does it fit in with the Buddhist teaching? And how does it fit in with the traditions of yoga? So I... I've been studying that. So just a little bit about right effort. So in the Noble Eightfold Path, right effort is, it depends on and is holographic with the other seven limbs of the path. So... All of the limbs of the past train us to properly direct our energy in our lives. And so, for instance, right view, which is the first limb of the Eightfold Path, which allows us to understand, to turn towards our suffering instead of run away from it.

[11:25]

It gives us the big picture or the preliminary conditions of knowing that what we're trying to do. And knowing our intention is part of being able to fulfill it through appropriate effort. And our intention, right intention, the second limb, is a mind that is just preliminary to or precedes action. So after we kind of understand what we're doing in a general way, we need to understand how personally we might want to practice or relate to what we see in our own lives and in the world around us. And right speech is the third limb. And of course, I'm saying these things casually, but you could study each one of them for 10 or 20 years and it wouldn't be long enough. But right speech is a way to put right view and right intention

[12:29]

into a way that can be shared, into a mode that can be shared, both for ourselves to hear it and for the people around us to help us. And it helps us, practicing with right speech helps us renounce some of the big bad habits that we have, which lead to suffering like ill will and desire and harm. And to do that, we have to renounce falsehood to speak truth. We have to renounce slander to speak kindly. We have to renounce the use of harsh words so that we can be of benefit. We have to renounce the idle use of speech so that we can understand what's timely. So I'm just very quickly running through some of the Noble Eightfold Paths. And right action, right speech is speech, right action is body.

[13:33]

And so it means that what we do expresses compassion and wisdom. And it starts with the renunciation of things that we're not supposed to do. It allows us to understand what we are supposed to do. And it allows us a way to think about spreading it around. I could talk about that for an hour, but I'll just set it to one side. And right livelihood is a specific form of right action. And in ancient times, right livelihood was thought of as not following a profession that caused harm. But I think that in these times, we need to think of right livelihood as... one of the ways that we relate to all the economies of our lives, all the transactions of our lives, can be thought of as right livelihood.

[14:36]

So, for instance, our economies of money, our economies with people who we spend time with and who we don't, how we use space and how we don't use it, how we waste money, or use the things around us, how we take care of the resources around us, and how we budget our time are all forms of right livelihood. They have to do with how we spend our lives and how we contribute to the world around us. And if we think of all of the economies of our life as for benefit, we'll understand that it isn't something that happens casually. It's something that we have to practice. And when we practice the right view, right intention, right speech, right action, and right livelihood, of course they're their own practice, but they're also preliminary training in right effort and the right effort that we make on our seat.

[15:45]

So for instance, it's easy to understand that if we practice not killing and non-harming, that we'll be far less anxious when we sit down for zazen than if we go around killing or harming without noticing it. Hope that makes sense. If we practice right livelihood, if we're conscious of spending appropriately and working appropriately, when we sit down on the seat, we're less likely to have to obsess about our checkbook or something that remains undone. That's very basic. but it's hard to do. I don't know if you know the story of Bird's Nest, Roshi. Do you remember that story? A lot of people here, I'm sure, have heard it. But I'll tell you anyway. There was an old man who lived in a tree. And this old man was a very, very profoundly wise Zen master.

[16:49]

And because he lived in a tree, people called him Bird's Nest Roshi. And there was a governor in the state that Bird's Nest Roshi's tree was part of. This governor was also known as a man of great accomplishment, but he also wanted to understand how to live his life with right effort and in an ethical way. So he went under Bird's Nest Roshi's tree and said, Bird's Nest Roshi, Bird's Nest Roshi. Bird's Nest Roshi said, yes. And the governor said, tell me the most important teaching of Buddhism, parentheses, so that I can practice it and bring my life to a sense of right effort. In Burt's Nestro, she said, stop doing evil, do good, pacify and clarify the mind.

[17:59]

Stop doing evil, do good, clarify the mind. And the governor said, in so many words, duh, A child understands that. Tell me the real teaching. And Bert's Nest Roshi just repeated himself. And then he said, no, really, anyone could understand that. And then Bert's Nest Roshi said, yes, a child of two understands it, but a man of 80 still has trouble practicing it. So right effort is something that we can practice. our entire lives and not be done. So right effort unites body, speech, and mind with right intention and all of the other rights or uprights or wises that there are.

[19:04]

And it's based on virya. Virya means vital energy. And... It's an economy of vital energy that transcends external effort to reach internally into our physiological life and the possibility that we have of really settling in meditation. So we think of meditation as quiet. The people who live here, have you ever... had a relative or friend say, well, what are you doing these days? And you say, I'm in a monastery. And they say, that sounds so peaceful. And then maybe you don't know what to say because the experience every day is not always idyllic or peaceful. Of course, to people who come once a year, twice a year, three times a year, they walk in and immediately they feel the peace.

[20:10]

like Suzuki Roshi, after he left his own monastery and walked in for the first time for a visit and heard the sound of a bell, began to cry because of that feeling of peace. So we might just feel, oh no, the creme brulee isn't ready. Oh no, what are we going to do? Should we serve or shouldn't we serve? You know, so that might be what comes up in our minds. Or at home, you know, you might not think of your home as a place of peace. But people who come, if you're practicing right effort, will certainly experience it that way. And as I, if I walk into the kitchen, I experience it as a place of peace. Even if the creme brulee isn't yet done. You know, and is... It's going to be another 90 to 120 seconds before it gets served up or whatever it is.

[21:17]

So virya is the mental factor or the experiential factor rather behind right effort. And virya can adapt to the motivation. So you can use virya for good or for ill. You can use the same energy. towards a good purpose and intention or towards a bad one. So we have to be careful about all the other aspects of the path. The wholesome purpose that we're here for is liberation. And there's so many unwholesome possibilities, but the wholesome one is freedom from suffering, to wake up for the benefit of all beings. I don't know how you would put your own wholesome motivation. It might not be those words. It might be different words. But know that your energy can be wholesome or unwholesome energy, depending whether it's directed to what's really important to you or not.

[22:31]

And if the other limbs aren't properly established, then... Even if wholesome energy comes up, it might not be able to be maintained because other things may leach away at the wholesome energy that we have. So for instance, when I started to practice, I had a very big insight, but my body and mind wasn't ready for that insight, so I couldn't enact it. And it was to take another 20 or 25 years of practice before I could even begin to understand what to do and how to do it. And so I think that we can think of right effort or samavayama as a way of training the will. So it's a yogic practice of training our will towards our wholesome purpose and to unite our intention with what we do and what comes forth from what we do.

[23:36]

which culminates in the ability to do that in our own bodies and mind when we sit down. So it is one of the main prerequisites for right concentration and right meditation. Without right energy, we can sit upright, but we will not have the ability to use the light of discrimination. in our practice. We'll be asleep to ourselves. So it's absolute necessity, right energy, which is a culmination of all the rest of the path for our meditation to be effective and helpful. And so there's four great endeavors which are really part of right effort in practice. and in the Zen monastery too.

[24:37]

So we have to prevent unwholesome states from arising. Unwholesome states that haven't yet arisen, we have to prevent them from arising. And the unwholesome states that have already arisen, we have to renounce them or abandon them. We have to arouse wholesome states that haven't yet arisen. And we have to maintain and build on wholesome states that have already arisen. So that sounds very, well, of course. But again, in practice, it's a lot harder because do we even see our unwholesome states? that have already arisen? Do we ever even see the possibility of some of the unwholesome seeds in us being watered to fruition if we say or do certain things?

[25:45]

So it's hard. It's not hard like learning chess is hard. It's hard like remembering to get up when the bell rings is hard. And in Zen, Zen is a form of Buddhist practice. And in Zen, we have special teachings that are part of this lineage that have been developed as specifically Zen teachings and not just general Buddhist teachings, which are a form of the Bodhisattva's armor and skillful means. So, for instance... If we develop transcendent love, if we develop compassion and great steadiness and stability, that's a sort of, it helps us, it helps prevent anything unwholesome from taking root in us.

[26:47]

If we practice the virtue of a bodhisattva or an awakening being, the virtue of a bodhisattva is faith, Practice is making our practice infinite, is making our practice infinite and turning over the results to someone else. Even if we want those results for ourselves, to turn them over and make them part of everybody's awakening. And the bodhisattva's activity. So the bodhisattva's armor, the bodhisattva's virtue, and the bodhisattva's activity. The bodhisattva's activity in this lineage is zazen, is the precepts, is the monastic rules. We have monastic rules, so you probably heard in zazen instruction, and I see everybody is wearing subdued colors.

[27:52]

And the subdued colors make it possible for the people around us to concentrate. And everybody is disciplining yourself to sit still, though I hope not in a way that hurts you. Because that's part of creating an environment in which everyone can sit. This is really important. It's really important that it be conscious. It's really important that we uphold it. This is the emblem of our family style. The last thing I want to say about right effort in the Zen practice is that it doesn't just arise in a vacuum. In our way, it's taught intellectually in that we can hear teachings and that a lecture is hearing teachings. But also that we can repeat those teachings or read the source material about those teachings ourselves and repeat them until we understand them.

[28:58]

But then it gets interesting. Because then, not only do we have to check out those teachings in our life, but the real test and the real training is with others. So to really receive the teachings of right effort, I depend on you. We depend on each other for feedback, for intimacy, for... someone to sit next to us, for someone to practice with us, for someone to give us a gift, for someone to honor us or not, you know, whatever it is. We depend on this, and by our acknowledgement and our wholehearted acceptance and keeping the gift of others' activity moving in us, we practice right effort. So... I do want to say that both Buddhism in general and Zen specifically are under the umbrella of the teaching of yoga.

[30:08]

Yoga is a science and an art, a tradition of how to make one's practice thoroughgoing, how to make it enter every part of our body, our speech, our mind, And the body in its physical aspect, in its sensory aspect, in physiological, emotional, intellectual, and our understanding of what joy is and our deepest spiritual life. So yoga is that tradition that includes those technologies of freedom. And Zen is the yogic arm of Buddhism. And so I do want to say something about what Suzuki Roshi says, something about what BKS Iyengar says, and then just be quiet so that you can ask some questions if there's time. Okay? So what BKS Iyengar says is that clear vision, when clear vision...

[31:20]

progresses to right thinking and progresses to correct action, i.e., right effort. That right effort, in this way, eradicates the origin of pain in its three ways that it arises. So the three types of pain in yoga are pain that we're born with genetically or genetically, We're born into certain time and place. So pain that we're born with, pain that happens to us, and pain that we self-inflict. And right effort purifies our tendencies to fall into or to be obsessed or consumed by any of those. My teacher, BKS Iyengar, says about right effort.

[32:27]

So basically, right effort eradicates pain. It doesn't mean that pain doesn't exist. We'll still have pain if we're born with something, if something happens to us, if we are receiving the results of something that we did. Still be painful, but we won't suffer. And Suzuki Roshi talked about right effort as renunciation. How are we doing on time, by the way? Are we good? I'll stop soon, okay? Because you guys need to sleep. And the rest need to take baths or enjoy the stars. So I do want to say for Suzuki Roshi... We should try to continue our effort forever, but we should not expect to reach some stage when we will forget all about it.

[33:36]

Effort will be refined more and more as you sit and as you practice. At first, the effort that you make will be quite rough and impure, but by the power of practice, the effort becomes purer and purer. When effort becomes pure, body and mind become pure. This is the way we practice. Once you understand your innate power to purify yourself and your surroundings, you can act properly. You will learn from those around you, and you will become friendly with others, and also he means with yourself. This is the positive energy of Zen practice. Okay? So he says this, and then he... adds about zazen. The way of practice is just to be concentrated on your breathing with right posture and great, pure effort.

[34:38]

And this is how we practice Zen. So thank you very much. Thank you, Greg, for inviting me to teach. And thanks to the workshop. And I hope that you get some rest. and take care of yourself, this place, and wherever you go. Okay? Good night, and we'll have questions in real life, okay? Thanks. Thank you for listening to this podcast offered by the San Francisco Zen Center. Our Dharma Talks are offered free of charge, and this is made possible by the donations we receive. Your financial support helps us to continue to offer the Dharma. For more information, visit sfcc.org and click Giving.

[35:35]

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