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 evening, and I hope that for those of you who are coming in from a different time zone, that you aren't too tired staying up so late. But we'll see what we can do here. It's wonderful to be together again and, you know, to raise up these interesting questions and matters together and to consider them. And I think we're really enjoying ourselves in this intensive, Norman and I. So I hope you are too. So tonight, I'm going to take a look at the Zwi Monki, largely book three.

[01:07]

In book three of Dogen's Zwi Monki, we find instructions for how to relate to others through Zen practice. Other people, other objects, specifically our mental engagement with them. So first, I'm going to read to you talk number eight of book three. It's pretty short, so I'm going to read the whole thing, in which Dogen says, An ancient has said that if you are not an equal of the person, do not speak of his conduct. This means that if you have not learned and understood another's virtues, when you see the person's faults, You should not criticize him. You should think that she is a good person, though her action is bad.

[02:07]

Good people also do bad things. Accept only her virtues, not her faults. The saying that a wise person looks at another's virtues and not her faults means the same thing. So this wonderful passage brings to my mind a similar teaching that we find in the Platform Sutra of Hui Ngang, dating almost 600 years before Dogen's Zui Mung Ki. In Chapter 36 of the Platform Sutra, there's a poem in which Hui Ngang instructs his his gathering that day, how to practice at home. And the poem has seven stanzas, and the fifth goes like this.

[03:11]

People who truly follow the way don't consider the faults of the world. Those who consider the wrongs of the world only add to their own. I don't condemn the faults of others. My own wrongs are what I'm after. Just get rid of thoughts about wrongs and all your afflictions will shatter. Go read that again. People who truly follow the way don't consider the faults of the world. Those who consider the wrongs of the world only add to their own. I don't condemn the faults of others. My own wrongs are what I'm after. Just get rid of thoughts about wrongs and all your afflictions will shatter.

[04:22]

Lovely advice. So the question may arise, how do we focus on one thing, as we were considering last week, while interacting with others? What does that look like? When we first take up practice, we might feel that any interaction with others is an imposition. and we might recoil, get grumpy, get judgmental, find fault with the perpetrator of such disturbance. Fact is, this may go on intermittently for decades. And it may turn out that the practice of not finding faults with others requires an extraordinary vigor

[05:30]

an active and lively commitment to doing so. When we sit, we may or we may not find an expansive space, joy, deep peace, and tenderness toward all being. But if we think we can just... surf that wave right into the thick of human interaction, interactions with others, we are likely to wipe out badly and wonder how it happened that all the worst people who ever existed landed right here in my life. Time to take a breath. Focus on just one breath, then another, and another.

[06:34]

In our practice, we become aware of mental patterns. First their presence, then their arbitrariness and uselessness. Then the physical manifestation of these patterns. in the body. In these days of pandemic, when our interpersonal contact is probably diminished, we spend a lot of time with ourselves. I go for a run on the beach most days. And when I run, I focus on light from the sun, the Earth's gravity, and the Earth's atmosphere as I see and feel my body and breathe. But sometimes, especially during the election season, I find myself just snarling about this one or that one or both or the whole thing.

[07:51]

Or I find myself grumbling about For me, when awareness arises from who knows where, I have the opportunity to allow the snarling or the grumbling to fall away. Choosing to do so, to return to sunlight, this body, this breath, is my commitment to practice at this moment. But sometimes, as for the story I'm in the midst of, I just want to see it through. And I choose not to allow it to fall away. For me, I can't remember a time

[08:57]

that that was a good choice to passively stand by and allow the rant to win the day. So cultivating awareness over and over again, returning to focus on one thing over and over again becomes more compelling over time. When I defer to my attachment to the story about how this one did this wrong thing to me or whatever, I feel like I missed something. I feel like I was attending the dress rehearsal of my life or like I just spent too much time watching daytime TV or something like that. I don't even know.

[09:58]

if daytime TV of my childhood still exists, as the world turns, the days of our lives. The repetitive nature of our narratives, our knee-jerk emotional reactions, is why our practice is repetitive. We have what we need to meet. repetitive narrative, with repetitive breath, awareness of repetitive heartbeat, maybe a repetitive word, repeatedly returning. Focus on one thing is this, it is returning. In the setting of human relationships, it does take a vigorous effort, sometimes a vigorous restraint, not to get swept away, not to get pulled into wanting to be right, wanting to win, pulled into protecting our status or reputation or that of our allies or loved ones.

[11:36]

wanting to get back at someone who we feel did us harm. Our grandparents may have told us to count to 10 before answering someone in anger. So we already have wisdom about how human interactions can easily go badly when we speak carelessly or impulsively. Dogen's advice here is even before we need to restrain ourselves from speaking impulsively. We can arouse the thought of this person's virtues, not engage in thoughts of this person's faults. This requires a special repetitive effort. Because we have developed a very strong critique muscle, frequently exercised, strong, justified, with which we evaluate people individually and in groups, close to us as well as remote.

[13:03]

Muscles like this, which are strong, repeated habits shared and even cultivated among us, which we justify, for example, as a means for seeking truth and justice. These muscles need rest. Our practice in this area of seeing others' virtues, not seeing faults, is resting this critique. the one we engage before we even know or intend to. We humans have so many capabilities, so many capacities, so many talents. If we focus on

[14:09]

and develop our own unique talents and abilities and think of them as our true purpose in life, we may lose our way in this practice. So instead, we can see these talents, these abilities, these capacities as tools. If we see them as tools, we must learn to put them down when we have completed the task. Like if you need to drive in a nail, you will want to find your hammer. When you finish driving in the nail, you will want to open your hand and let go of the hammer to return it to the toolbox. But what if you forgot to let go of the hammer?

[15:10]

What if you walked around with a hammer in your hand? What if you forgot it was a hammer and after a while thought it was part of your hand? It might get difficult to do certain things, but you might be able to adapt. We are very adaptable. Thing is, you might also need to pick up a saw and a screwdriver and other useful tools over time and forget to put them down too so that you'll walk around with an arm load of tools and then not be able to have the right tool handy and often use the wrong tool out of repetitive habit. We are so good at justifying ourselves, making allowances for our strange habits, that we and others around might not even notice this peculiar predicament.

[16:25]

So, focusing on one thing, how about letting go? Like we let go of each breath. Letting go in that way of each tool. First, we must notice that the tool is not part of our hand. Then we must notice how we are clenching the tool with all our might. Then we can begin to relax that clenching muscle. Open our hand as we exhale. Rest that muscle, that clenching muscle. And allow the tool to fall away. We can pick it up later when we need to use it.

[17:30]

But for now, we can free our hands by opening them. So this is a big metaphor, a big story. And perhaps it's a stretch. But I think this is the spirit of letting go of others' faults. It requires effort because we hold on so tightly to our narratives about each other and about others. We shore ourselves up by these narratives. So to let go of the narratives, habits of thought, and all the body language that follows, to breathe in and out in the company of others, resting our critique muscle for now.

[18:35]

to the practice of focusing on just one thing, with others. Accepting others' virtues, not their faults. In book three of Zui Wan Ki, Dogen's instructions touch on all kinds of human impediments to practicing the way, such as, relations with others, concern with wealth, with reputation and status, and maintaining even a simple means of support for oneself or one's family at the expense of practicing the way. In one talk, A monk comes to Dogen saying he is the sole provider for his mother.

[19:40]

So it would be difficult for him to devote himself fully to the way as he wishes to do. Dogen pretty much tells him he should devote himself to the way rather than wait till the opportunity arises when his mother is gone. First of all, it wouldn't be good for his mother to bear the responsibility of preventing him from practice. And second, there is no guarantee he would live longer than his mother, in which case his mother would feel guilty and still be left alone. Dogen compares this monk's story to Huenang's, the sixth ancestor. who while a poor woodcutter supporting his mother heard someone recite a portion of the Diamond Sutra and was awakened.

[20:41]

He immediately arranged for support for his mother and left to take up practice in the North. In Book Three, Talk Number One, Dogen sets the tone and the important theme for many of these discussions. I'll read it to you. Students of the Way, let go of body and mind and enter completely into the Buddha Dharma. An ancient said, at the top of a hundred foot pole, how do you advance one step further? In such a situation, we think we would die if we were to let go of the pole, and so we cling firmly to it. Saying, advance one step further means the same as having resolved that death would not be bad, and therefore one lets go of bodily life.

[21:57]

We should give up worrying about everything. from the art of living to our livelihood. Unless we give up worrying about such things, it will be impossible to attain the way, even if we seem to be practicing earnestly as though trying to extinguish a fire enveloping our heads. Just let go of body and mind in a decisive manner. So, This is not just instructions for those pesky days when we find ourselves stuck at the top of a 100-foot pole. This instruction is for all of us, all the time, alone or together. For me, the sense of this, just let go of body and mind in a decisive manner, brings to my mind a koan,

[23:02]

that I was working on with Tetsugen Rene Glassman at the Zen Community of New York in 1985. It was time for Norman and I and our eight-year-old twin sons to get in the car and drive back to Green Gulch. But I hadn't gotten the koan yet. I hadn't understood it. And Tetsugen really wanted me to understand this koan. So he told me the answer. And now I will tell you. The question was something like this. How do you save a person at the bottom of the well without using a rope? After presenting different solutions, including jumping into the well myself, to which Tetsugin said, no, that's no help.

[24:04]

Now there are two people in the well needing to be rescued. He pantomimed the answer. He grabbed a rope and lowered it down. Then with full strength, he hauled, grunting and pulling the person down. So the teaching there is that in that situation, who are you going to let tell you that you can't use the rope? It's like if your baby or anyone else's baby falls in the water in front of you, are you going to worry? about ruining your new outfit? Or that you feel a little chilly and someone else should handle the situation?

[25:09]

Or worry about how you will look jumping in the water fully clothed? No. In a moment like that, there is no reputation. There is no new outfit. And there is no one else but you. to get that baby out of danger. That is the sense of jumping off the 100-foot pole. It is an act of immediacy, urgency, of courage, of trust, of commitment. It's not part of a plan or a strategy. Clinging to the top of a 100-foot pole is like holding onto that hammer.

[26:16]

Why would we think it's a good idea to stay at the top of a 100-foot pole? Why would we think it's a good idea to carry around an armload of tools? It takes courage to let go, to take the step away from the pole, by opening the hands. This is the depth of commitment to practice and to our lives just as they are that Dogen speaks of here. We are not dabbling in our lives. We are not rehearsing now for some quality of life that we'll find later on. This is the one and only moment of life. Finding our practice in each situation, whether it be interpersonal, in our work, in our narrative, in our possessions, in our social concerns and commitments, it's all still focusing on one thing.

[27:37]

And here, we can really see that one thing is not a thing. It is our practice, our breath, our heartbeat, our letting go, our courage, our commitment, our tenderness, our love. And it is repetitive, yet it never repeats, just like life. For more information, visit sfcc.org and click Giving. May we fully enjoy the Dharma.

[28:34]

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