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. Thank you for coming to Green Gulch this morning on this Memorial Day weekend. How many are here for the first Great. Welcome. Thank you for coming. I'm sure each of you has a story of how you got here. Before I begin the talk this morning, I wanted to mention something. This is mostly for the residents at Green Gulch, about one of our residents. They're There's bad news and good news, so I'll just say that our beloved Jared Hunter, who's a student here, was in a major car accident last night, and the car flipped over ten times.

[01:22]

He is going to be okay. but he's badly hurt. He's in the ICU in Davis, UC Davis, and Fu, the abiding abbess, spoke with him. He broke his C7 and skull fractures and will be at home, I think, with his dad for several months, but he was able to talk with Fu, and he has... He will recover. And the person he wasn't driving, the person he was with is okay as well. So he has messaged everyone. He said to Fu, tell everyone I love them. So we'll be having well-being ceremony for him and writing cards. And I think people may want to even drive up at some point to go see him. So let's keep Jared in our thoughts and hearts.

[02:25]

So this is the Memorial Day weekend. And Memorial Day is a ceremony that often is just associated with three-day weekend, beginning of almost summer, but spring. This was a day of ceremonies, used to be called Decoration Day, where people would go to the graves and the cemeteries and decorate the stones, the memorials for fallen men and women in the military service. So it's this particular day as opposed to or in contrast to Veterans Day is especially for those people who have died. And I don't, you know, there's practices of going to memorial ceremonies, going to cemeteries.

[03:40]

Cultures, different cultures have different ways of remembering our friends and relatives who have died and the practices of going to the cemeteries and having meals and including including those who have died in our daily lives, may not be as ordinary ceremonies for us. But this is one day, this Memorial Day, so that will be on Monday, Decoration Day. So the... the talk today, I think the heart of the talk today is, what is our Zen practice? Maybe that's the heart of every talk, really. And I wanted to kind of circle around that question in different ways.

[04:46]

And starting with this quote from a particular Zen master, Japanese Zen master, who's almost modern day, 1821 to 1910, a man by the name of Nishiari Bokusan. And Nishiari Bokusan was a scholar as well as a Zen master. And in our lineage of teaching, he taught certain teachers who then Suzuki Roshi, the founder of Zen Center, studied with. So Nishiari Bokusan is in our world. in our study lineage, you might say, in our teaching lineage. So there's this quote from him that I've been turning for the last year or so, and I thought I'd bring it to you. It's just this. To abide at ease in the place of non-abiding is to forget the self.

[05:50]

To abide at ease in the place of non-abiding is to forget the self. Now, if you're familiar with a particular verse or a particular teaching about forgetting the self, this will resonate with you, what he's saying. And for those of you who may not be so familiar with it, I wanted to quote something else. about studying the Buddha way. So this you can find pretty easily. To study the Buddha way is to study the self. To study the self is to forget the self. And it goes on, to forget the self is to be actualized by myriad things. I think it goes on, but I'm going to stop there.

[06:53]

So to study the Buddha way is to study the self, and to study the self is to forget the self. And one might think, well, why do we want to forget the self? I don't want to forget the self. I want to take good care of the self. And I think this forgetting the self is not proposing to forget about one's needs, one's needs. journey in life, one's relations. It's not about somehow dismissing the self or not taking care of the self or somehow putting down the self in any way. To study the self is to forget the self, and in this case, this is the misunderstood notion that we have of who we are. Forget about that one, which we're trained in all all sorts of ways to believe in and to put first above all else.

[07:58]

So to study the Buddha way, or the awakened way, is to study the self. And when we begin to study the self, we might find that this notion that we have had for many, many years of who we are and what we are and how we are in the world doesn't hold true or doesn't hold up if we begin to study in the way that this character for study in this, to study the Buddha ways, to study the self. In Japanese, this character has a compound that means like a bird, it has wings and self as part of the character. And this kind of study that's translated in English as study is more like watching very carefully.

[09:03]

It's like a bird, how a bird learns to fly. So a bird has the potential to fly, a baby bird, and all of us have potentials to wake up to our fullest self, and yet we have to study. We have to watch. We have to listen. The bird has to watch its mama and papa bird and what they're doing in order, and then try it and maybe make mistakes and try it again until that's the kind of study that we're talking about. It's not opening books, although that's part of it. reading, listening to Dharma talks. That's part of the study, but this meaning of the study is to enter your life in a full way and be aware of it and watch and ask and test.

[10:15]

So... not just intellectual but becoming intimate with your life, very, very familiar with your patterns, your karmic ways of doing things that you don't even know where it comes from, thinking in this way or doing something. But you notice, you begin to notice these actions of body, speech and mind are repeated and don't have a beneficial outcome, maybe. We study in this way our life, study the Self. And the more we study the Self, the more we see that there isn't some separate I, me and mine, that's unrelated to all things, actually, all beings, actually all moments in time.

[11:15]

This moment right now is not divorced from, separated from all the other moments that are right here, right now with us, that appear in this moment. So to study the Buddha way is to study the Self. to study the self is to forget the self. And this forgetting the self is not, as I said, putting ourselves down or that we don't matter. It's to actually see the truth of how we exist in this world with all beings, with the great earth. And to become more and more and more intimate with this so that To forget the self is to be actualized by myriad things.

[12:19]

So forgetting this small self, this conception really of a small self, and to see more and more that all things come together to actualize us, to create who we are, to create this manifestation of this inconceivableness really of what we're calling what I call this person, or Linda, for a nickname, for the inconceivableness of all the myriad things coming forth. And each of you is the same thing. So the more we become intimate with that, the more we can't put together, like Humpty Dumpty, we can't put together that old self in the same way. And it also is not destroyed. I think this is a very important point too. What makes each of us completely unique with all the diversity that there is in this world.

[13:26]

In fact, each person is completely unrepeatable. Even so, we are our own uniqueness at the very same time that we're connected with the myriad things. this teaching which you might say is one of the most fundamental of the teachings and maybe the hardest to realize. So to study the Buddha way is to study the self, become intimate with, really familiar, accustomed, what it is and how it works. And to study the Self is to forget the Self, to forget that separate conceptualized notion of who we are, which is often imagined as separate.

[14:36]

And to forget the Self is to be actualized by the myriad things, so all things come together in this appearance. So Nishiyari Boksan says, to abide at ease in the place of non-abiding is to forget the self. So when I was speaking, you know, this happens sometimes where one might feel like some kind of dis-ease or nervousness, like, wait a minute, what is she talking about? There's no self, there's no what I think I am, I'm not, or that can be destabilizing, perhaps, or I don't like this, or that's not true, or she doesn't know what she's talking about, or I don't like it, it's frightening, maybe. So this abiding at ease

[15:40]

Abiding at ease in the place of non-abiding is forgetting the self. It's not scary. There's an ease there which we may have never known. The ease of not having to defend, protect, and bring forth is carry ourselves forward. to make it against all odds, that shifts into abiding at ease in the place of non-abiding. I wanted to say a little bit more about this abiding and non-abiding. In our Buddhist teaching there's what are called the four Dharma seals. Dharma, in this case, meaning the teaching or the truth, these seals. A seal is like this is, you know, this is it.

[16:46]

Boom. So the first of the Dharma seals is the truth of suffering. It's also the first noble truth that there is dis-ease, actually, and suffering of all kinds. Suffering of bodily harm, accidents, illnesses. Then there's the suffering of psychological, emotional suffering, the loss of loved ones, being forced to be with those who don't love us, and we don't love them, but we have to be with them, or separated from people we love. There's all these kinds of sufferings, and there's the truth of that. And when I say it's a Dharma seal, we can't somehow get out of it, get out of the suffering of our life. Now you might say, but wait a minute, doesn't Buddhism say you can put an end to suffering? Putting an end to suffering is abiding at ease in the place of non-abiding, is forgetting the self.

[17:53]

It doesn't mean that we don't get sick or that someone we love isn't in a terrible car accident. It's not saying that. It's saying we abide at ease in suffering. the way things actually exist is the relief of suffering. So that's the first dharma seal. The second is impermanence, the truth that everything is changing and does not abide, even for a, you know, everything is flowing. whether we realize it or not. Sometimes we do realize it's going very fast. The changes are happening very fast. And other times it seems like pretty ho-hum. But this teaching is that all things change. There's this truth of impermanence.

[18:55]

And along with that is that the truth of non-abiding. There's a non-abiding self. So there's nothing that abides. It goes along with impermanence. Those are the first three of the four seals. The last one is called nirvana, or peace. That's the fourth seal, fourth Dharma seal. And that, in the teaching that I want to bring today to you, nirvana is not... some place that we're going to go to someday if we could just work hard enough to get there or something, or if the teachers would only tell us the secret, not keep it to themselves, or some idea like that. Nirvana is the peace or the ease when we're living in accord with the other truths, with these other seals, living in accord with the non-abiding self and the impermanence of all things, and that there is suffering.

[20:02]

the truth of suffering, there is a peace in our life and a way we can be with whatever arises and being with others. The middle way is how we live upright and at ease in the midst of ever-changing impermanence, a non-abiding self, and suffering that's arising as well. How do we live without flipping to one side or the other of trying to get away, trying to transcend out of this world, trying to make things not change and make them permanent, or just get out of it altogether somehow.

[21:05]

This kind of flipping from one side to another. My son is at Yosemite. This is his fourth year on the Yosemite search and rescue team. And he sent us a video of this training they just did on swift water rescues. And for swift water rescues, you have The streams and the rivers are flowing after the winter and the snow melt and all. They're flowing very, very fast. But it doesn't maybe look like it's going that fast. And people think, oh, this is a waterfall or this is the creek. And they get close and they fall in. And the rescues, he told me, are often retrievals rather than rescues. People fall in and are swept away, you know. But it doesn't look like you can be swept away. You have some misunderstanding.

[22:09]

So this flowing, ever-flowing, the person doing the training for the Swiftwater Rescue was saying, to stand next to one of these rivers is like standing next to a freeway. You wouldn't sort of casually step into a freeway. And it's like that. You have to have utmost respect for these rivers. And I was thinking about the middle way. It sounds like kind of neutral maybe, like, oh, it's neither here nor there. But the middle way is deep and powerful. is something to be respected with your full body and mind, to live in this way with ease. Abiding with ease in the place of non-abiding takes our entire full, wholehearted effort.

[23:18]

Now, I wanted to put this together, what I've been talking about, the way we live together and the truth of how we live together, together with an ethical and a moral life. So when we're living in accord with these seals and the truth of our existence, the interconnected way we exist, not as separate selves but with myriad things, if we're living completely in accord with that, in accord with this awakening way, we are also living a life, an ethical life and a life of morality. I think of that as like a DNA strand or something.

[24:26]

A spiritual life and an ethical life cannot be, I don't know, maybe DNA can be pulled apart, but anyway, as one, it's one, it's one life. There isn't like a spiritual life, but not an ethical life. One may think that could be, or someone may present in that way as leading a spiritual life, but meanwhile, they're not upright. in their actions of body, speech, and mind, then I would say that's not what we're talking about when we're talking about a spiritual life or an awakened life or practicing Buddha's way. So when we're practicing Buddha's way, we're in accord with the way things are, which is how we're interconnected with all things. And in that truth, our actions that come in three types, body, speech, and mind, flow from that understanding, flow from actually the wish that all things, because we are all things in this teaching, we are connected with all things, be benefited as well, not just ourselves alone.

[25:49]

So the coming into alignment with these teachings is also coming into alignment with all the precepts, all the precepts that are pointing out and guiding us to activities that do not benefit self or other, that are harmful, that put ourselves over and above others and are gain and what's best for this one but maybe hurts other people. Those kinds of activities really, that's a big delusion that we may have because what hurts others does hurt ourselves. What is cruel to others is we may not feel it at the time but this goes against the truth of the way things are, which is that we are one, one body.

[26:58]

So the spiritual, ethical, moral life is just one life. And so we have things to help us, point us in the right direction, especially You might say at the beginning of our practice there's what we call guidelines or precepts or in Japanese the word shingi, which is translated as pure standards for the community, ways that we agree to live together that are the best for the whole, that are for the well-being of everyone, not setting one person where it works for them but not for the rest. And those you might say are, some people may not like that. You know, they came to Zen to be free and there's a whole bunch of stuff we're supposed to be doing or not doing, you know, rules or guidelines.

[28:08]

Wait a minute, I thought this was all about freedom and liberation. So this is one of those other kind of big delusions I think that people have, that our freedom is to do whatever we want whenever we want to. That kind of notion, if we are trying to live that way, we will find that we are completely bound and imprisoned by our own patterns and our own habits and our own tendencies. It's not free at all. totally bondage to our karmic consciousness, our repetitive patterns of living and thinking and acting and speaking. It's not free at all. And it often is causing harm to ourselves and other people. So it feels kind of cognitively dissonant, you know, that rules equal freedom.

[29:14]

or the guidelines and these pure standards is what helps us to be free, to find a new way of studying the Self. What is the Self? Studying the Buddha way is to study the Self. And to study the Self means we really do study these ways of acting and thinking and talking and we also see what the consequences are. What happens? How do we feel? What happened with that other person? How are our relations with other people? And the more we're in alignment with how things are, you know, sometimes we need help The Buddha doesn't need rules and guidelines.

[30:16]

The Buddha, who is fully awakened to the way things are, does not act in a way that's cruel and not beneficial to others, and just beneficial to him or herself. That it doesn't go along with the awakened mind. It's actually, you might say, an impossibility, because They no longer can think in that way because of awakening to the truth. So the more we awaken to the way things are, the more our life comes into alignment with these guidelines and precepts and ethical way of life. So when we have fully integrated the way, Buddha's way, there's no need for, or I should say, we become ethical and moral upright beings.

[31:38]

Thinking about the situation that the world is in, You know, thinking about our environment, our institutions, our respect for one another, our protection of our young people, the enormous cruelty and oppression of racism and all of the isms, sexism and You can name all of them. Our practice is not fooling around. Our Zen practice and our sitting practice, which our Zazen itself expresses this truth of our existence with all beings and the life of precepts and an ethical life and the wish

[32:52]

to live for the benefit of all beings. This is all within our zazen practice, our sitting practice. Nothing's left out when we're sitting. All beings are there. And it's not — Suzuki Roshi in the lecture says, it's not a game. This is not something to play around with. And I say that feeling at the brink of the real, crucial, dangerous time that we're in right now. Someone was recently telling me about a book they're reading called On Tyranny, about how tyranny happens. And, you know, the... the normality of certain things that we become used to it and inured to.

[33:54]

And then, before we know it, these things happen. And I'm feeling that our practice and our moral, ethical life as beings in this world is all, it's not a game. And it's not a kind of neat thing. exotic, fun thing to see what happens. I feel the depth of it, the depth of our practice and the ability of our practice to connect with the suffering of the world without losing our compass. So how do we respond to our current situation, whatever situation we find ourselves in, in an upright way without putting ourselves first and getting what we need first?

[35:09]

And at the same time, and this is where it gets so subtle, there is a need for self-care. There is a need for responding to the circumstances that we need to take care of in our life. How do we do that without indulging and without totally clinging and being attached to just ourselves alone? This is a lifetime of practice. How do we include self-care, which is care for others? If we're not caring for ourselves, We're not available to others. And out of this self-concern, we hurt others. So where is the self-care without attachment to self and self-clinging and concern? And then what's indulging too much?

[36:15]

So responding to what's currently arising includes us. We're not trying to cut ourselves off. This is also one of those notions. You know, there's a term called spiritual bypassing that was coined by a psychologist named John Wellwood, which is a wonderful term, which he noticed in spiritual communities where For the sake of the absolute or the teaching or these rarefied transcendence and liberation and these kinds of wonderful things, people skip over or bypass what they need to look at in their own life in terms of their own suffering, psychological issues, these kinds of things, and it's skipped over or avoided. because it's hard to look at. And he says, messy.

[37:24]

So instead, we're going to look at awakening and compassion and the absolute or something. Meanwhile, we haven't repaired a whole bunch of relationships that have had some big trouble or looked at our own issues and emotional needs and so forth. So it's... taking the goal of the spiritual life and using that and bypassing all this work that we may need to do. So we're not talking about that. And at the same time, to make ourself the complete center of everything that we're doing without including this wider understanding of the truth of our existence, why middle way is so deep and so difficult you know this upright in the middle of this and in this spiritual bypassing you know there's looking down on others you know who are not as realized as we are that kind of thing has nothing to do with spiritual practice right this is a kind of a sickness you might say that can

[38:52]

envelop people, us communities, So those are the things I wanted to bring up with you today. And coming back to this phrase, abiding with ease in the place of non-abiding is forgetting the self. And that forgetting the self is not, as I've been saying, putting yourself down or taking yourself out of the picture, but it's to understand the fullness of who we are and what we are and what is this world.

[40:06]

And one might say, well, that's all well and good, but now what, you know? And when asked, you know, what have the ancestors taught us One of our ancestors, you know, what is it the ancestors say in order to help us? And one ancestor said, I just show them my sitting cushion. If someone says, what do the ancestors teach us and what do they have to give us? Point to your sitting cushion. Sit. Find out what that is for yourself. Taste it yourself. Thank you all very much.

[41:11]

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

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