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. Well, good morning, everyone, and welcome to the Zen Center's broadcast. Just going to... it on gallery so I can see all your faces as those of you that are showing in your names. Nice to see you this morning. Old friends and many new friends. So this morning I'm going to talk about the value and importance of appreciating our life and our practice as a basis for acting in the world. It might seem odd to bring this subject forward, that is appreciating our life in the midst of all the pain and suffering in the world right now.

[01:02]

The consequences of climate change so visibly shown by Hurricane Ida and the wildfires all over the West. The horrible suffering both physical and economic caused by the pandemic. The human tragedies of wars and injustice of all kinds. I was reflecting yesterday with my wife whether these times seemed darker than the late 60s when I left my math career in search for an answer for the desperate times then. The assassination of Jack Kennedy, Bobby Kennedy, Martin Luther King, the Vietnam War with 50,000 Americans killed and over 3 million Vietnamese killed in a senseless war. It seemed at that time to me that the world had gone kind of crazy. So Max and I didn't come to a conclusion in our comparative thinking, but I would say that definitely these times maybe would tip the scales. I bring this forward because in the midst of my confusion in the 70s, I met Suzuki Roshi and saw a way forward.

[02:09]

Suzuki Roshi had had a difficult life being raised in Japan and World War II and had seen a lot of great suffering in his personal life and in the life of his culture. But still, he had a great sense of joy. And I would often say in lectures, and I'll quote this from one of his lectures, the purpose of my talk is not to give you some intellectual understanding, but to express my appreciation for our Zen practice. To be able to sit with you in Zazen is very, very unusual. Of course, whatever we do is unusual because our life itself is so unusual. Buddha said, to appreciate your human life is as rare as soil on your fingernail. You know, dirt hardly ever sticks to your nail. Our human life is rare and wonderful. When I sit, I want to remain sitting forever. But I encourage myself to have another practice, for instance, to recite the sutra or to bow.

[03:14]

And when I bow, I think, this is wonderful. But I have to change my practice again to recite Sutra. So the purpose of my talk is to express my appreciation. That is all. Our way is not to sit to acquire something. It is to express our true nature. That is our practice. So I think that's a beautiful sentiment and statement from Suzuki Roshi. And that is the point of my talk. I just want to express my appreciation for our practice. and maybe expand on it a little bit. As Kazuki Roshi once said in a lecture, sometimes I think you think your problems are more important than the fact that you are alive. I'll repeat it again. Sometimes I think you think

[04:17]

Your problems are more important than the fact that you are alive. Seemed like a kind of simple statement at that time when I heard it, but I have turned that phrase over and over again for the past 50 years. It has been a great question to hold. How easy it is to get anxious, angry, tired is said when I'm in the midst of my problems. They seem endless. I remember Ed Brown telling the following story. It was the third day of a seven-day sashin, and Suzuki Roshi said, the problems you are experiencing now, at that point, Ed imagined Roshi saying, will soon be over. I don't know if, for those of you who have sat seven-day sashins, usually by the third day, you're in a fair amount of emotional and physical difficulty, and you think, oh, will this ever end? But Roshi didn't say it will soon be over.

[05:18]

He said they will be with you for the rest of your life. And in some sense, that has been my experience. We have a continuing series of personal, physical, mental problems. You know, my friends have problems. My students have problems. As Abbott of Zen Center, we've had a lot of problems facing the pandemic and issues to deal with. There's problems in the larger world, injustice, climate change, the earth problems, our political problems, the number of problems is endless. Life is full of problems and they will continue. And if we wait to solve our problems to appreciate our life, we will miss our life. And I believe we will be less effective in the world. And problems are different. Some are, you know, problems that turn into challenges that are interesting for us to work on and exciting growth opportunities and opportunities to work with others.

[06:24]

And other problems are enormously difficult problems, loss of loved ones, painful grief to deal with. But in some sense, I've come to feel that all these problems are workable. And even in the midst of our most painful ones, when we can find love at the heart of it. But there's also sort of a bigger problem. And this is a kind of a problem that Buddha pointed out early, the problem of self, our problem and our fundamental human problem of suffering, and how we always separate ourselves from the other and cause ourselves suffering. So I thought I would talk a little bit about that problem. So I'm going to bring forward case six of the Blue Cliff Record. Yunmin said, I don't ask you about the before the 15th day.

[07:29]

Try to say something about after the 15th day. Then Yunman answered himself for everyone, every day is a good day. So Yunman lived from 864 to 949, near the end of the Tang Dynasty and the Golden Age of Zen. This was a very turbulent time in China as the Tang Dynasty was falling apart. There was persecution of Buddhism. Excuse me for that, I thought I had muted my phone, but... But apparently I hadn't.

[08:32]

So, returning to every day is a good day, even when a lecture is interrupted by the sound of a ringing phone. So back to Yunnan and his turbulent times, the monasteries being destroyed and great persecution of Buddhism. So he certainly lived in difficult, complicated times, possibly even more difficult and complicated than the times we're living in. And yet he came forward with this interesting statement, every day is a good day. Yunnan, of course, went on and founded one of the five schools of Zen. He appears 18 times in the Blue Cliff Record, 12 times in the Book of Serenity, and five times in the Gateless Buried. Even Zhao Zhou, who was one of my favorite Koan teachers from the Tang Dynasty, and also one of Suzuki Roshi's, didn't have as many stories as Yunman has.

[09:37]

I think he probably has the most Koan stories in the three collections. He studied under several great teachers before he began teaching at the age of 55, and he taught for 30 more years at Yunman Mountain. I thought I would share one story from his training. This is the story of him meeting Mu Zhou, which was a very influential teacher to him. Master Mu Zhou had trained at the large temples, I think he trained under Wanbo, but he had retired to a village where his mother was ill to take care of his mother, and he didn't have guests very often, didn't usually invite them in. So when Yunnan came, Master Mazu cracked open the door and said, who is it? And Yunman said, it is me, Yunman. And Mazu shut the door, Mujo shut the door on it.

[10:37]

And this happened several times. Yunman kept coming and Mu Zhou would just shut the door and turn him away. And finally, I think maybe the third or fourth time, Mu Zhou, Yunman came and Mu Zhou opened the door and Yunman sort of put his foot in the door and Mu Zhou said, why do you keep coming? And Yunman replied, I am not clear about myself. I would like the master to give me some instruction. I am not clear about myself. I would like the master to give me some instruction. Mujo grabbed Yunman and yelled, speak, speak. Yunman hesitated and Mujo said, too late and slammed the door on his leg. Some stories say he actually broke his leg. I don't know if that's the case. And they usually, as these stories go, Yunman, attain some understanding. I kind of like this story in several different ways.

[11:43]

First of all, it reminds me of when I first came to Tassahara and I met Suzuki Hiroshi. And basically, I just wanted to ask him, you know, how do I live my life? You know, can I get some insight into my life? You seem to have some wisdom and way to live with kindness. Can you give me some instruction? It seems like such a perfect kind of request from a student. And for some reason, you know, Mujo spoke to him. I love that also. He said, speak, speak, you know, say something, you know, and that hesitation, you know, that's a part of Zen. There's always some request. Come forward, express yourself, say something. And if you don't say something quick enough, sometimes they slam the door on you. So in one way, this is kind of has a dramatic quality and there's some part of the way these stories go.

[12:45]

And in some ways, one likes it because there's a sense of immediacy about it. And in other ways, it feels a little too kind of rough. And I never kind of felt that from Suzuki Roshi. Suzuki Roshi could be strict, but... I never kind of imagined him breaking my leg by slamming a door on me. So I think we have to take these stories a little bit in the grain of salt in that way. But this question, you know, I'm confused and suffering, can you help me? Cannot be just answered, you know, by the sort of simple series of statements. It's not an answer that can be answered in a conceptual way. The question I brought to Suzuki Roshi was more like a question that stayed with me my whole life than an answer that was supplied. But the technique used in these koans is what's called using a turning word or a phrase.

[13:51]

A turning word is a kind of word that undoes the trap of your comparative thinking. where your world is sort of fixed by a conceptual mind. The turning phrase turns the heart around, turns it from being upside down to right side up. A turning word is clarifying the confusion in our questions and attachments. So the turning phrase here is, every day is a good day. Does that really make sense? Every day is a good day? What does that phrase mean, and how do you even sort of think about it? If every day is a good day, then all days are the same. There must be good days and bad days. So what does this phrase, every day is a good day, mean? What way does it sort of interrupt the way we normally go along measuring good and bad days? So I'll return to the case. Yunman said at the beginning, his first statement, I don't ask you about before the 15th day, try to say something about after the 15th day.

[15:05]

Yunman answered himself, he answered himself answering for everyone and said, every day is a good day. So back in the calendar, back in those days, the calendar ran on the cycles of the moon. So the 15th day of the month was the day of the full moon. And that would be the day the assembly gathered and did a ceremony of repentance and taking the precepts. And we do that at Zen Center still on full moon days. And if it's in the evening when we're doing the ceremony, we typically would have people come in to at least at City Center. I think it's the same for Green Gulch. And depending on Pasar in the wintertime, it's maybe a little different. But we would get in small groups and we would discuss how we had practiced with a particular preset for the previous month.

[16:09]

We would share with each other, you know, How did we did we treat people with kindness? Did we tell some lies? Were we truthful? Were these are the kinds of things we discuss and we would do that for 45 minutes and then we do the full moon ceremony where we would repent and take the precepts again and rededicate our life and it's a kind of ceremony of purification and In our, in Zen, we don't think of purification so much as we think of it as a ceremony of awakening, a kind of enlightenment ceremony. And so I think we could pose the question that Yun-Man raised as, I don't ask you about before enlightenment, try to say something about after enlightenment. So if, what was your life before you? had set your course on the course of a vow, and what was your life after you set your course on the course of a vow.

[17:14]

So there's something interesting about that term before. Yin-man doesn't seem to be interested in before, but we are. Who am I is often answered by explanations and descriptions of where we've been, what we've done, I'm this way because my dad was not very demonstrative, so I'm not either. I'm this way because my dad didn't like to take center stage, so I'm not. I'm friendly because my mother was. I don't like languages because I had dyslexia, etc., etc. You, I think, are all familiar with this drill of how much our past seems to preoccupy our present, and we miss this moment. because we're so mired in the review of our past and our past seems to fill our life. So we're lost to the here and now.

[18:17]

So Yunman is not interested in before. He's not interested in the stories we indulge that define ourselves. He's interested in how we can be here in this present moment, how we can bring ourselves to the present moment. This is the... everyday practice of Zen, how we bring ourselves to the present moment. This koan opens us to the mysterious vast in the everyday, the good day that is here in every moment, the eternity of each moment. This is a koan because it asks us to explore the non-duality in the duality of good and bad days. In this pandemic, there are good things. Personally, for me, I am home at night with my wife every evening, and we cook dinner together. Before the pandemic, I would go into City Center four nights a week.

[19:23]

And, of course, it was wonderful to see my friends at City Center and have dinner with them, but this has given me a chance to deepen my relationship with my wife. And also because I'm... home here in Mill Valley and I have a nice forest behind my house, I've got to watch with more detail the changes in the seasons and the falling of the rose petals from my rose tree, rose bushes, and all of the things that sometimes I miss when I travel too much. So in some ways, this has been good for me. But in other ways, this has been really terrible because COVID-19 is a terrible disease. killing millions around the world and causing great suffering and economic disruption. So things are really bad. So how do we hold this that things can be really good and really bad? And this Cohen is asking us to embrace it all, to see in all of our good and bad, to see in the bad, the good, to see in the good,

[20:34]

the bad, to allow ourselves to suffer and feel the tragedy of human life, and to allow ourselves to feel the joy and ecstasy of human life. And only by embracing all of it can we know how to love and act with compassion. So this is a big request. So much of our life we want to shut off. So many areas of our life we're not open to. But to really have an appreciation for every day is a good day, we need to be willing to go to the dark side of our life, as well as the great joy in our life. In some ways, this is kind of an obvious thing, I was at my eye doctor on Wednesday and I was sort of reading through this koan while I was waiting for the doctor to come in and the assistant came in and asked what I was reading.

[21:36]

I said, I'm reading a koan about every day is a good day. And she said, well, of course, every day is a good day. It's good to be alive. And in that sense, it is true. Every day that you're, as someone would say, above ground is a good day. But this koan is more than just, well, you're alive, so of course it's good. how to be alive and embrace every moment of your life in a way that reflects that it's good to be alive. You know, we have a story in our mind that allows us to protect ourselves from the world. Oh, I'm a good person. Things are going well. I think we really have to sort of look at ways in which we protect ourselves from the actual reality that we're living in. How we can be more open to our own suffering, suffering of other people, and the joy that other people have, and our own joy.

[22:45]

This is some continuous effort we make to be with ourself. I've often thought only through pain can there be Only through experiencing the deep suffering in our life can we actually love at the level that we need to embrace this world. I was just from my own personal experience. For years, I walked down to Tennessee Valley Beach on a Thursday morning with a very good friend of mine. I think we did it every Thursday. other week for five years, the same walk. And someone might say, well, gee, it seems kind of boring to do the same walk, repeat it week after week. There's so many beautiful places to walk in the headlands in Mount Tam. I think that's true also. But it reminds me that the heart of Zen practice is repetition.

[23:46]

We do the same thing over and over again. And in repetition, there's a kind of depth that happens. And so I think there was a way in which we walked, same place, sat on the beach. And this particular day was one of those very dreary, foggy, cold days. And I found myself sitting on the beach feeling very dreary and particularly sad about something. I didn't know what it was. But for some reason, I didn't protect myself from it. felt that feeling. And in the midst of that dreary sadness, I found a kind of deep caring and love for my life. And so I think this is true of almost all of our emotional experiences. If we can open ourselves up and really let them, feel them actually touch us, we'll find something beautiful there.

[24:49]

Maybe it was helped by the fact that I was with a friend. I sometimes think that, you know, having appreciation for life and gratitude is so much better when you can share it with a friend. If you're grieving, it's sharing with friends your grieving that makes grieving possible. So I thought I would share this morning a practice that can help us with remembering to appreciate our life because it's so easy to get lost and forget. I get lost in my problems and I no longer appreciate what I'm doing. And I thought I would bring forward this wonderful gratefulness practice by David Stendhal Rost. He has it in his website, gratefulness.org, and sort of going to mostly present it as it's presented there. And he has a wonderful sort of

[25:52]

acronym for it are three simple steps to how to do it. It's stop, look, and go. So these are Brother David's instructions about how to bring more gratefulness and gratitude into our life. Stop. Whatever you are doing, devote your full attention to being still or slowing down. Be conscious of your breath breathing itself. Follow a complete inhale-exhale cycle with your awareness. Bring your attention to the gift of the present moment and allow yourself to soften into it. So I often do this, you know, like one example is if I'm in a slow-moving line at a checkout counter in a store, maybe the... clerk's got some problems with some customer who can't get her payment situation worked out properly.

[26:59]

And I just stop and take a breath and just sort of feel where I am and feel my surroundings. And inevitably I feel better and I feel grateful. And maybe I can even, when I finally get to the checkout counter and be friendly and helpful to the person who's processing my order. So stop is the first thing. Stop what you're doing and pay full attention to being still, slowing down, and follow your breath for a full inhale and exhale. Then Brother David says, look. Look at what life is offering you right now. Become awake to your surroundings. Recognize opportunities available to you. Consider the invitation to feel grateful for what you already have, what is already true in your life. Ask yourself one of these questions.

[28:01]

What am I grateful for right now? What can I be grateful for right now? What opportunity is life presenting me for which I can be grateful? He says, your answers do not have to be grand or complicated. Some of the most meaningful things to acknowledge are those we commonly take for granted, our senses, the weather, a pet, what he says, a friend, our buddies, our bodies, or a part of nature, anything. And he says, try thinking of these things as a gift as opposed to a given. We can elevate aspects of our lives, especially the most routine and common, by receiving them as some kind, of gratitude that would... Let's see. We can elevate aspects of our lives, especially the most routine and common by receiving them with the same kind of gratitude that we would receive an unexpected gift, taking nothing for granted.

[29:08]

He says it can be powerful... to actually begin each acknowledgement of the words, I am grateful for the gift of, and complete that sentence. So I was thinking, you know, of course, I've always appreciated Brother David and his way of bringing this forward, but we have many opportunities built into our Zen practice to help us with this practice. One I always sort of bring forward at Tassar, there's an altar before you enter the baths. you stop and bow and chant a short verse. If you were in a hurry, and I always tended to be in a hurry at Tassar because I seem to be busy doing things and we never had that much time at the baths. So I sometimes used to feel this was an inconvenience, you know, but yet if you stop actually and bow and say that short verse, you stop and feel and smell the air. and hear the birds singing in the creek.

[30:16]

And again, remember, oh, to be grateful to be here at Tassajara and about to take a bath. I mean, we have other practices, and I'll share one that I think is dear to my heart and dear to Suzuki Roshi's heart, which is a practice of bowing. I remember during my first week at Tassajara as a student, I was bowing during morning service, and I had been given instructions a few days earlier about doing a full bow, which we did nine times at the beginning of morning service. And of course, I had no idea what full bows were about or why you do these things, but I was trying to do things as instructed. I had been an Eagle Scout when I was young and usually try to follow instructions. And as I began my bow to the floor, all of a sudden my whole body was filled with gratitude. Such a pure experience that seemingly came out of nowhere as there was no thought associated with it.

[31:24]

It was a moment of grace. Of course, we don't know or understand the depth of the practice of bowing. It was important to Suzuki Roshi's teacher and important to him, and he encouraged us to do it. I remember I visited Eheiji, the temple Dogen founded in 1240, I think, and Dogen is the founder of Soda sect Zen, the sect of Zen we practice, in case you're not familiar with that. And I had a chance to meet with the abbot who was in charge of running the temple, and he had visited us here at City Center. couple of years before, and he had noticed that we bow nine times at the beginning of service, where as at Aheji, they only bow three times at the beginning of service. And of course, that's where Suzuki Roshi had trained, and he was curious why Suzuki Roshi had had us bow nine times at the beginning of service instead of three when he had been trained that way at Aheji, and we follow much of what Aheji does.

[32:36]

And I... I think I said, I don't remember. I think I said something like, at one point, Suzuki Roshi just suggested we bow nine times instead of three. And I haven't had a chance to actually research this. Maybe someone else at Zen Center can make me clearer on this story. But I think there was some way in which Suzuki Roshi just thought, for us, it would be good if we bowed nine times instead of three. Maybe us Americans needed a little bit more. bowing in our life so a comment on uh on some of the practices at zen center that encourage us to stop and for a moment appreciate our life and i think if you're new to zen center you may not realize how many of the things you're doing are actually opportunities to do this step into the zenda with your left foot if you're on the left side

[33:38]

of the door, step in the zendo with your right foot if you're on the right side of the door. There's nothing particularly holy about doing that. It just turns out that if you accidentally, after you've been doing this a while, step into the zendo with the wrong foot, you'll notice, oh, I'm stepping in with the wrong foot, because I was thinking about the fact that I'd been cleaning the carburetor in the truck, instead of noticing that I was entering the zendo and should turn my attention to sitting. So the third in this process that Brother David emphasizes is stop, look, and go. It's kind of like a child crossing a street. You stop at the corner, you look to see if cars are going, and then you go. And what Brother David means by go is express your gratitude. Do something. It can be as simple as smiling and saying thank you to the harried clerk I was mentioning earlier or expressing some kindness to a worker or honoring someone who's been cooperative or commend some generosity, praise some courage.

[34:50]

He uses the term start a ripple, start a grateful ripple. You know, actually sort of share this moment of gratefulness. You've had this sense of appreciation. for this moment and share it with someone. And I think that's important because I think to the extent that we act from a place of appreciation for life, we act with more generosity and the ways in which we try to help the world, which I think we should do, that's the other part of go, the ways we try to help the world will be more skillful and will come from a deeper perspective. place in us. So to summarize Brother David's gratefulness practice, stop. Take a stop in your life. Take a breath. Look at what you can be grateful for in this moment and do something that flows from gratitude.

[35:54]

Go. Go. Do something that flows from gratitude and make a difference. So as I move towards the conclusion of this talk, I'm going to bring forward a comment from Suzuki Roshi. He enjoyed his life. Knowing that your life is short, and I tell you, I do realize how life short is, life is short. Enjoy it day after day, moment after moment. When Buddha comes, you will welcome him. When the devil comes, you will welcome him. The famous Chinese Zen master Basu, when he was ill, was asked, how are you? And he answered, sun-faced Buddha, moon-faced Buddha. There is no problem. One year of life is good.

[36:55]

One hundred years of life are good. If you continue our practice, you will attain this stage. That's a very famous koan, which I won't go into. Sun-faced Buddhas apparently lived for a hundred or a thousand years, and moon-faced Buddhas lived for one day and one night. But still, they were Buddhas, and they appreciated the life they got to lead. I remember when Sudikiroshi was dying, one of his students, he saw students while he was lying in bed, One of his students, Stan White, came in and Stan hadn't seen him for a while and was quite shocked by how ill and frail Suzuki Roshi looked. And Suzuki Roshi looked up and said, don't worry, I know who I am. Even then, near his death, Suzuki Roshi was generous enough to take care of Stan's worry, to take care of Stan who was there

[38:05]

to see him, generously put him at ease. So I want to share one more story. This is from The Hidden Lamp. These are stories from 25 Centuries of Awakened Women, a wonderful book that came out. And this is the number 13 story. And it's a story called Chen Mountain Flowers. And it's got a reflection by Joanna Macy. So here it goes. Chen was a lay woman who traveled far and wide, visiting famous masters. After she realized enlightenment, she composed the following verse. Up on the high slopes, I see only old woodcutters. Everyone has the spirit of the knife and the axe.

[39:07]

How can they see the mountain flowers reflected in the water, glorious red? So that was the poem she wrote about seeing, obviously, people cutting down the wood for fire and probably being somewhat destructive of the environment. But she created this wonderful poem, and this is Joanna Macy's reflection on it. The mountain flowers are right there in full view. The blossoms are real and red, glorious to behold. See how the water repeats them in its quivering mirror. Chen returns us to our senses, and that is what she wishes for the woodcutters, to see and feel the life around them. Look, right here on the branch of this tree you're chopping, see the bright flowers. As she snaps them awake from their habitual behavior, the world comes into focus.

[40:13]

That's the kind of stopping she aims for. That's the kind of stopping where one comes back to oneself, and oneself is the place where real change can occur. That's the kind of stopping where one comes back to oneself. And oneself is the place where real change can occur. I thought it was very interesting that Joanna picked this particular story to bring forward since Joanna Macy, as most of you know, an author, a teacher, a scholar of Buddhism, system thinking and deep ecology, a respected voice and movements for peace, justice and ecology. She has spent six decades in activism. She's 92 years old and still carrying on her activist life. And she brought this forward kind of as a way, because, of course, today it's not, you know, woodcutters with axes and knives.

[41:19]

It's bulldozers and chainsaws. And she has, of course, roared against the destruction of the environment. But she also sees, I think, and brings forward this as Maybe getting them to stop and see the destruction they're causing will allow them to turn their heart and do the right thing. And turn their heart by appreciating the beauty of life and the value of life, and maybe they can do the right thing. And that's basically kind of the message I'm coming forward. Can we stop? Can we come back to ourselves? Can we see the harm that is done in the world and love the beauty in the world and try to help and make a change? So thank you very much for your patience and attendance to this talk.

[42:19]

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

[42:47]

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