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 morning, everyone. I... I feel very happy to be able to talk with you today. Can you hear me okay? Yes? Yes? Yes. So this, we're coming past the midpoint of our Sashin, and Abbas Fu and I have talked about there'll just be this lecture and tomorrow's lecture, and then the last day we will just sit and have a full morning of sitting without a Dharma talk.

[01:07]

Fu told the story this morning of Suzuki Roshi's final hours, final minutes, really. And this is a story that's been told and retold, and I really see it as... a teaching story. There's a quote from Suzuki Roshi, things teach best when they're dying. And my feeling about the way Suzuki Roshi died was his last expression of caring and compassion for the students who had gathered around him for his descendants, really for us. This sense of choosing the time when people were well cared for and settled and had the days in front of them to settle seemed like the last, you know, kind of ultimate gift of compassion.

[02:20]

Just the days before the 4th, But the last three days before Suzuki Roshi died, he had stopped talking pretty much, stopped eating, and stopped drinking, and also was in a fair amount of pain. So that's just something for us to know and consider. That's not that unusual, I think, in hospice work for someone to stop eating and drinking and turn inward and away from the regular supports of life. So I was there that morning. I wasn't sitting the sashim, but I did, so I didn't sit that whole week.

[03:25]

But I did offer incense and do prostrations at City Center, 300 Page Street. And it was the first time I had ever seen an unembalmed, I guess. The first time I'd ever seen a dead person without what the funeral director was. I had been to those kinds of funerals, but I had never seen just the simple fact of dying. And it had a very strong effect on me. I was a rather new student. I had just been at Zen Center a year. And going to offer incense in this long lime that snaked up the stairs up to the second floor. Suzuki Roshi's disciples sat with the body for hours.

[04:33]

And then being able to just be quiet and feel, just feel what that was. Feel the grief. Feel the loss. Feel the not knowing sadness. and to allow those feelings to be integrated over those days. I wanted to read you a few of Suzuki-sensei Mitsu Suzuki's haiku. She's passed away now. She died at 102. And she was a haiku master, really, and has two books of poems, Temple Dusk, which came out, I think, in her 80s, maybe.

[05:39]

And then her 100th year, another book of her haiku was created with the help of Tanahashi-san and Kate McCandless, I think. And it's called A White Tea Bowl. 100 haiku from 100 years of life. So in the earlier book, I'll just read a few of these. This was the summer of 1973 at Tassajara. The one... Who trimmed the tree is no more. Young maple. I imagine this was visiting Suzuki Roshi's garden at Tazahara.

[06:42]

My husband's seventh memorial. Cold dawn zazen. Distant fog horns. this from 1979 in my late husband's name I left a donation young leaves temple that was from the earlier book and then this this book of the hundred haiku from a hundred years of life expresses the expresses the feeling of old age and what it means, what it means to be older and older and more and more people you love dying. First calligraphy of the year.

[07:46]

Today, again, I write Beginner's Mind. His portrait smiles. a single camellia blossom. In the abbot's quarters, his portrait and calligraphy, red nantan berries. In the temple kitchen, aroma of boiled daikon, anniversary of his death. And this one, which I don't think directly invokes Suzuki Roshi, evokes Suzuki Roshi, but this is Okusan Mitsu Suzuki Sensei.

[08:54]

To be of benefit to my heart's firm vow, cold winter morning. So I felt moved to tears actually reading Oksan's words that the delicacy of the what she catches, smell of daikon boiling, anniversary of its death. That's what our life is like that. He's tiny. If we're slowed down enough, if we're quiet enough, we can feel so much. And so much of our kindness and affection for one another is there.

[09:55]

So I have been appreciating this unique session that we're sitting together and appreciating your enthusiasm for being in the Zendo and all the different ways you're staying warm. And sometimes I just can't even tell who's under there, you know, because some people are moving seats. And who is that? I don't know. They're wrapped up nice and cozy. And I have this feeling that we all want to be there, you know. That may be projection on my part, but it feels that way. I certainly do. And to meet the cold, not as some kind of obstacle or hindrance, but as an entrance, as a gateway. Very kind of refreshing. way of practice together.

[11:04]

So just in talking with many of you, you've mentioned some of the difficulties that have been coming up, some of the concerns, some of the pain in your Zazen practice, and also the wandering mind, the mind that is jumping all over in different ways. So I wanted to talk a little bit about that and also connect that with where we last left Gautama Buddha Shakyamuni under the Bodhi tree and how he worked with what was happening for him as he sat for his seven days. So before I take up where... the Buddha was before he was Buddha, I just wanted to say this has been a very helpful, it's become almost a mnemonic for me, a kind of mantra almost, which is whole body breathing, whole body breathing.

[12:24]

And settle the mind on the body the way the body is settled on the cushion or the chair. Settling the mind on the body in the same way the body is settling on the seated bodhimanda so that has become a kind of refrain for me at the beginning of sitting and then whole body breathing. So whole body breathing is all parts of the body. We can feel the breath throughout the body in our back and front torso and neck and legs, filling the body with breath. And the actuality of every cell,

[13:28]

Every blood cell is being oxygenated throughout our body as we inhale and exhale. Every single cell. It's amazing. So it is whole body breathing. Whole body breathing is not just an image. It is reality of how we exist. It's resonant with Katagiri Roshi's settling the self on the self and let the flower of your life force bloom. That was his saying, his teaching that he would bring up many, many times. Settle the self on the self and let the flower of your life force bloom. So this is for our Zazen. May that be, may that reverberate for you.

[14:37]

At this time in the Sesshin, when we're quieter and more settled and calm, I always feel that our ears are also more open. Is that possible? That we can hear things, things come in in a way that When we're more activated and haven't quite quieted down and maybe more distracted at the beginning of the seven days, we can't hear as much. And then later in the session, we can hear. So I'm speaking. I want to speak to your ears that are wide open and listening in maybe a new way. All the scent stores are purified when we sit. Our eyes, you've probably noticed the beauty.

[15:41]

Just in the simple movements of leaves twirling and shadows, and aside from the magnificent sunsets and cloud formations and the moon and the ever-changing sky, but the tiniest of things. I remember my first session. It's like, has this always been this way, the world? I felt like I had washed purely my eyes so I could see. It was there to be seen. It was uncovered for me. And our hearing, we can hear sometimes the farthest sound, way far away. as well as the thunderous ocean that we have so close to us, it feels like it's right in the garden.

[16:45]

And joined to that, the howling and the yipping of the coyotes, and then a distant airplane threading through those sounds. This is all... This is for us. This is our life. To appreciate and join and open to and celebrate. So whole body breathing. Right now, whole body breathing. So the last time I spoke on Monday, I... We left the Buddha sitting. He had just eaten some delicious rice porridge that Sujata had given him. And I missed one detail that I've always appreciated, which is after she had brought this offering to the tree god in a golden bowl, and he ate up his rice porridge and felt the strength of the food entering his body, which gave him the strength.

[17:58]

to sit upright. But before he sat down, he took the bowl and he said he was going to toss it into the river. And he said, if this bowl flows upstream against the current, this will be a sign to me that I will accomplish my purpose, that I will realize my true self, that I will awaken to my true self. And he... took this golden bowl and he tossed it into the Naranja River. And indeed, it flowed upstream against the current. And this particular detail to me is, you know, it really is the spirit of our practice of turning against, not against meaning encompassing, combat with, but in the opposite direction of worldly affairs, and I, me, and mine, and grasping after stuff, material things, fame and gain, and so forth.

[19:10]

This turning the opposite way, which is bodhicitta and our bodhisattva vows, and people may not understand that your family and friends may say, what are you doing? How can you waste your life, you know, sitting in this valley? And, you know, with all that expensive education under your belt, you're throwing it away, you know, or whatever people say. Or how can you do this to me and not be here for me? someone might say. And as my dad said, don't you want to be a journalist in Paris or something and travel? That, I think, to him was the, you know, that was really something to strive for. And that would make me happy.

[20:12]

So this flowing upstream, tossing the bowl, and having it, yes, flowing upstream. We may feel that way and feel like it's lonely, but we're not alone in this turning, turning the wheel the opposite direction. So then he settled himself under the Bodhi tree and took a... upright position, cross-legged position, and relaxed body, rested on his cushion, rested the mind on the body, the way the body was rested on his cushion. And his cushion, you know, he gathered these grasses called kushala grasses to make his meditation cushion work.

[21:15]

And the kushala grass has had these sharp edges. And if you don't do it skillfully, you can cut your, you know, get like paper cuts, cut your fingers. So kushala in Sanskrit means skillful. And akushala is not skillful. Sometimes wholesome and unwholesome. So gathering the kushala grass with kushala, with skillfulness, to make the kushan. to sit down. So that also, you know, every detail of the story is saying something, you know, skillfully gathering the conditions for our liberation, for our waking up. And in this day and age, at 2020, December at Green Gulch, gathering the conditions means bring your blankets, wear your hat, distance, wear these masks.

[22:21]

And, you know, little did we know that we could actually sit for seven days, most of the days, with a covering over our faces and breathe. I mean, someone might think, isn't that annoying or bothersome or... Don't you just want to rip it off or something? And instead, what I see, what I feel is fully resolved to sit there in these conditions for the benefit of beings, for our own benefit and safety, and to take care of one another. And if it means there's something that's maybe not all that comfortable, that's not going to stop us. That's not going to get in the way. That's not an obstacle. So I really, I just feel very encouraged and just encouraged by your practice and appreciative of the effort that you're making.

[23:29]

Maybe you don't even feel it. You're just doing it, which is probably best rather than looking at, boy, aren't I doing great? It doesn't matter. Just do it. You know, just follow the schedule this way. But I'm encouraged very much. So the Buddha skillfully gathered the causes and conditions for his sitting, settled into a steady, immovable sitting posture. And what? I think that's the answer. And what? The mind of what is it? that arises, that thus comes. The Buddha is the thus come one. That's the translation of Tathagata. Tathagata is the suchness or the thus coming and thus going. The Tathagata sat with what is it that thus comes.

[24:32]

And as you know the story, while the Buddha was sitting, settled, he had challenges. It wasn't like a piece of cake. He had challenges, just like all of us. That's why the story of the Buddha's life is our story. It's a teaching story. And how much is legend, how much is true, how much is teaching, it doesn't really matter. It is true. It is a true story for our own effort and our own practice life. So these challenges arose, and they're often talked about as Mara, you know, Mara came. Mara is, you know, it's just a way of personifying. the challenges that we have. And these challenges are sometimes called hindrances.

[25:42]

We call them hindrances or obstacles. And in the Heart Sutra, as you might recall, it says near the end, you know, after all the know this, know that, know this, know that, with nothing to attain, A bodhisattva relies on prajnaparamita. And thus the mind is without hindrance. Without hindrance, there is no fear. This part of the Heart Sutra has always, I remember first hearing it and like, no fear? Really? This is the promise here? No fear? Is that true? So I wanted to kind of unpack what these hindrances are together and then with the Buddha's story, you know. So there's, in the Sanskrit of the Heart Sutra, it says hindrance, another word, the word that's used for hindrance is chitta avarana, which means hindrance.

[26:59]

Mind coverings. Avarana means coverings. These coverings over the mind. And there's traditionally three different kinds of coverings. There's the karma, Avarana, or these coverings that kind of cover our free activity of responding to things as they are, things as it is. Because of our karmic conditioning and our ancient twisted karma of body, speech, and mind, it becomes a kind of covering for our free and skillful activity. That's the first of the avarana, the karma avarana. And then there's the klesha avarana. The klesha are the afflictions. And there's, you know, the afflictions are the three kind of big ones of greed, hatred, delusion.

[28:07]

And then there's classic ones, pride, overweening pride, and doubt. And what's the last one of the classic ones? Well, I'll find it anyway. These kinds of jealousy, envy, covetousness, retaliation, vengeance, all these kinds of things are part of the afflictive emotions, afflictive coverings. They cover our true spirit and our true connectedness and interdependence with these tendencies and patterns of actions. So those are the Klesha Avarana. And then there's what's called the Nyaya Avarana. That's another one of these J-N with the line over there.

[29:11]

And Nyaya, E-Y-A, Nyaya Avarana. Those are the thought coverings. Anything with the J-N-A has to do with gnosis or thinking or cognitive thinking. So there is the nyeya avarana, or these thought coverings that cover this particular avarana is having fixed ideas about the way things are, or even the teachings, or strong beliefs, so much so that we're not open... We lose our beginner's mind. We're not open to a new teaching or a new way of seeing things or information even that comes our way that if it doesn't fit, we don't want to have anything to do with it or, you know, discard it. There's a story that the Buddha tells that in probably the Pali Canon, I'm not exactly sure which sutta,

[30:16]

where he talks about this Nya Avarana by way of this story. The story is there was a merchant who had to go on a business trip and left his young son at home with caregivers or doesn't say in the story about the boy's mother. And while the merchant was on this trip, bandits came to the village and robbed and pillaged and burned down his home and kidnapped his son, this young boy. So when he came back after this trip, so much was destroyed, and he was so distraught, and he found the remains of this young person, a charred body, and... thought, oh, my son, my son was burned in this building. But the son had been kidnapped.

[31:19]

He didn't know. So he had a, he grieved and he wailed and he was just so strong, his grief and guilt that he had left and left his son to this horrible fate and he gathered this And he had a cremation ceremony and took those ashes and put them in a silk pouch around his neck and wore it all the time, walking, lying down, sleeping, eating. He always wore these ashes and grieved and pounded his chest and just was totally consumed with this grief. Well, one night he was sleeping. He couldn't sleep very well. He couldn't sleep very well ever. And he heard a knocking at the door. And the voice said, Daddy, Daddy, it's me, knocking, knocking.

[32:20]

And he let me in. And he thought, somebody is tormenting me and teasing me and doing this to me in my grief. And he refused to open the door. And the little boy kept knocking, knocking. until finally he gave up in despair. This is the Buddha's story of how Nyeya Avarana, these thought coverings, affect us so strongly that there's no room. There's no room to change or could be or let me investigate or what is it. we're just stuck in our beliefs and to our great detriment, you know, to our great sorrow. This story really struck me strongly.

[33:22]

Somehow I felt very moved by it, moved for this little boy. And how that's possible to have such strong fixed views that even given full, evidence of something, we say no. Reminds me of our political situation and what's kind of happening. So the Avarana in the Heart Sutra says, with nothing to attain, so nothing to grasp, Because why? We've just been talking about the emptiness of everything, that everything is dependently co-arising, dependent on everything else, so much so that you can't say that there's an abiding substantial thingness to ourself or anything else.

[34:28]

And so nothing to get, nothing to grab hold, nothing to cling to. So without that, without anything to get, letting go of gaining mind, the Bodhisattva relies on Prajnaparamita, this wisdom that has gone beyond the perfection of wisdom, the wisdom that sees emptiness, sees shunyata. And thus the mind is without hindrance. all the hindrances also are without substantialness. So the Buddha is sitting there, and as you know the story, the Mara comes, or you could say hindrances, or obstacles, or Klesha comes in the form of the traditional ones.

[35:35]

So the first one is sensual, desire and could be anything. Sensual desire could be depending on one's own karmic life. It can be a person or a kind of person or maybe it's food or maybe it's music or whatever. The senses, wanting the senses to be wanting something having to do with the senses and having that fill. fill our mind. And we can look into the contents of our mind and see what is there? Is there desires for all sorts of things? And this is this kind of sensory desire that Mara, that Avarana, that hindrance is thought to be like instead of this clear water of awareness,

[36:40]

It's water that's tinted, various colors that we're looking through. We're always looking through this water that's all these different colors. It's not clear water. That was the first one. And Mara came to the Buddha with those kinds of desires, trying to entice him off his seat, off his Bodhi Manda. And he was not, you know, he saw... This is not, I'm not really drawn. I'm not pulled by that. And he just sat upright. So we can look while we're sitting. Is my mind filled with this kind of, is it this kind of a mind? Whether it's, when are they going to ring the bell? Or what are we going to have for lunch? Or what am I going to do on my vacation?

[37:42]

Or other kinds of sensual wishes. And we can see, is that what's pulling us? And is that covering somehow? Is that a hindrance? So the second one that Mara... To push, you know, Mara in the story thought, uh-oh, this being is going to wake up to his true nature and will be out of my grasp. You know, this is personified Mara, and I won't be able to lure him. So I better push him off his seat somehow. And I have my theories about who Mara really was, which I'll tell you about later. So Mara sent the... the sensuous things. And then the second one was, and this is traditional, the hindrance of hatred and anger.

[38:43]

And Mara sent beings who were malevolent beings, who did not have the Shakyamuni's best interests in mind, were actually out to see him fail and hurt him. Actually, there are beings who do not want our... Best interest, that happens, that's true. And often our sort of instinctive thing is to fight back, get back at them, yell back, hit, fight, that kind of thing. But the Buddha, he was being assaulted by these armies, was shooting arrows at him and trying to hurt him. And he did not respond with anger and hatred. So this is greed and hate, these two poisons, and those are two of the five kind of classic hindrances.

[39:44]

And then the third one was, I would put in the classic list, the third of the five is, or that's the fifth actually, is doubt. So Mara said, okay, let's try something different. And Mara came with these kinds of words that you might have noticed. You might have noticed anger, by the way. Some angry going over things in your mind while you're sitting. When someone didn't have your best interests in mind. When you were hurt. Was it on purpose? And your reaction to that. And plans of how you might get back at someone that's kind of vengeance or retaliation, whatever, whether extreme or even tiny. I'm going to ignore them.

[40:46]

I'll show them, you know. Is our mind filled with that? If so, in the classic, you know, it's like our mind is boiling water. So we've had this tinted water with the... with the sensuous thoughts and then this hindrance of anger, which is boiling water. So the third Mara that came in the story was doubt. And the doubt is thought of as water that's in a cave, a dark cave, this kind of silent, kind of murky water like in a cave. And this doubt, What Mara said to the Buddha was, you know, trying to have him feel self-doubt. You think you're so wise and such a big deal, Mr. Gautama.

[41:50]

What are you doing here? Why don't you go back, get a job, take care of your family and stop fooling around like this? You know, this is ridiculous and you're ridiculous, etc. I don't know if you've had any thoughts like that that have come up. You're making a big mistake. This is a waste of time, and you're not such hot stuff. I find that particular Mara, that's the hindrance of doubt, corrosive doubt. Not the doubt of, I want to realize the teachings, and I'm not... Sure, I understand. That doubt encourages us. This is corrosive doubt that eats away at our resolve and at our wanting to practice and is not encouraging. So that was the third one. And, you know, the other classic ones, so we've had this ill will or this anger and the sensuous activity, the doubt, and then the

[43:00]

Other ones are sloth and torpor and restlessness and remorse and worry. And, you know, the Mara that threw things at the Buddha and the Bodhi Manda, you know, I don't think he had sloth and torpor. I think he was upright. But we may feel sloth and torpor, which is... the phrase that's used. And that water is like slippery, kind of muddy. I think of it as when I used to swim in the lake and those first, as you walked in, this is in Minnesota, it'd be all kind of goopy and algae and muddy, slippery. That was like this sloth and torpor, like can barely sit up. And so that might be happening. That might be a hindrance for you. And the restlessness, and worry and anxiety and remorse, those are also a part of the hindrances.

[44:03]

The restless and worry, the water is very agitated, like blown by the wind, you know, lots of ripples and movement. So I know some of you have talked with me about worry, anxiety, not being able to settle in the body, guilt, these kinds of things. These, if you look into the contents of your mind, are they, do you see that? And as you're looking with lovingness, loving kindness and gentleness, That looking, that act of mindfulness of what's going on is not a mind that's filled with greed, hate, and delusion, or restlessness, anxiety, and worry, or doubt, or sloth and torpor.

[45:09]

That mind is accompanying and being right there for whatever is with openness, with gentleness. Letting go of those hindrances. And in so doing, the settling, settling, settling. And seeing how these things arise and the impermanence of these things. Nothing will stay. None of it. Worry, restlessness, anger. None of them has substantial nature that will stay. So we can practice the impermanence of whatever it is that's arising. With no criticism, no chastisement, but lovingness, compassion. With nothing to attain, a bodhisattva relies on prajnaparamita, and thus the mind is without hindrance.

[46:16]

Without hindrance, there is no fear. So our fears are very connected with these avarana, these fixed views, with our karmic life, and with these afflictions. Afraid that something will happen or that we'll lose this or we won't get that. or that things aren't the way we think they are. All of those Avaranas help to produce fear, actually. So in our working with Prashna Paramita, with all parts of our life, we also work with our fears. And what did the Buddha do in the story?

[47:21]

after the Buddha was assaulted in all these different ways, very clever, very clever ways. And what are we going to do? What the Buddha did was, and we had the Buddha on our altar in this mudra of, you know, touching the earth mudra with seated in this posture, taking his right hand and touching, down to the earth, grounding himself, settling himself, and calling the great earth to witness. I have a right to just sit here with my resolve and my practice heart and to sit on this seat, on this platform of awakening. And the earth, you know, responded and shook, in seven ways, and basically said to Mara, he has a right to sit here.

[48:28]

We have a right to sit here. Be gone, you know. And the last thing I wanted to say is what I said earlier about my secret about Mara. You know, we need, you know, our problems, that we have. Our so-called hindrances and so-called obstacles are how we bring forth our full body and mind to meet our life. Our problems are our practice. Our practice and problems together come forth and bring up our strong practice, be it whatever it is, whatever the so-called So my sense is that mara is just another form that avalokiteshvara bodhisattva kanon, the bodhisattva of infinite compassion, took that form, took the form of mara to say, okay, you say you're going to sit and you resolve to practice.

[49:41]

Let's see about that. You need a noble... You need a noble opponent, you know, to really put forth. So I'll meet you there. We need that. So are these hindrances or are these our gateway to fully, fully come into the fullness of our practice without leaving one drop behind? you very much. Please take a look when you go in the Zendo at the Shakyamuni on the altar as he's touching the earth. And know it as you. Know it as non-dual with you and your practice. Thank you very much.

[50:44]

Thank you for listening to this podcast offered by the San Francisco Zen Center. Our programs are made possible by the donations we receive. Please help us to continue to realize and actualize the practice of giving by offering your financial support. For more information, visit sfcc.org and click Giving. May we fully enjoy the Dharma.

[51:11]

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