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 morning. Can everybody hear me all right? We have a new device. That's why we couldn't figure out how to turn it on. And if it starts making breathing sounds, which is what they warned me about, we have to be careful. Yes? Sounds very boomy. Is that better? Okay. How's that? Much better? Okay, good. Well, is there anybody here who's here for the first time? Wow. Really great.

[01:02]

I'd love to hear about how all of you heard about it and why you're here, but maybe we'll have to save that for some other time. Today we're in a half-day sitting, so we're not going to have a question and answer afterwards. We'll go directly from this talk down to... We're going to try another one? I used to be a scientist. This is part of how scientists were... This is research we're doing live. Okay. We have a new one. Good morning.

[02:09]

So what I thought I would talk about this morning is another Zen story. This Zen story comes from the Blue Cliff Record. It's Case 3, and it's titled Master Ma is Unwell. And I'm going to read you a little paragraph, which is a sort of a It's called a pointer. It's an introduction to the case. And this is how the paragraph goes. This way will do, not this way will do too. This is too diffuse. This way won't do, not this way won't do either. This is too cut off. Without trending these two paths, what would be right? Please test eyesight this for you to see. So that's... Something we'll talk about later. I'm just sort of lofting it out there for you to ponder a little bit. So here's the case. Great Master Ma was unwell. The temple superintendent asked him, Teacher, how has your venerable health been in recent days?

[03:21]

The Great Master said, Sun-faced Buddha, Moon-faced Buddha. Okay? So... This is actually a fairly simple case, but I need to explain a few things. First of all, Great Master Ma was probably one of the most famous Zen teachers in China during the Tang Dynasty. That's the 8th century. And he was a very physically strong man, man of great stature. And one of the quotes I read, he strode like an ox and glared like a tiger. his extended tongue covered his nose. He was a big, imposing guy. Anyway, he was very productive during his teaching career, and according to the book I read, he had 139 disciples, and each one of them off and started a temple in a different place. Staggering idea, 139 disciples.

[04:26]

I mean, I can't even imagine doing that many ceremonies, much less training them all. And so if you look at a Zen ancestor lineage chart, it shows all the five schools of Zen. About half of the entire chart flows from Great Master Ma and his long list of students. So he had a very big career and was a very strong, healthy teacher. But now he's sick. That's the point of this story. And he doesn't have a cold. He's dying. So he's gravely ill, and the superintendent comes up and asks him how his health is. And so the next part that you need to know is what's a sun-faced Buddha. They have sutras or scriptures where they list all the different kind of Buddhas there are and give you a brief description of them. So a sun-faced Buddha is a Buddha that lives for 1,800 years. or anyway, a very long time. That's a very, makes sense, a sun lives for long, a sun-faced Buddha.

[05:32]

A moon-faced Buddha, on the other hand, only lives for one day and one night. So, great Master Masa says, sun-faced Buddha, moon-faced Buddha, when I'm healthy, I feel like a sun-faced Buddha. I feel like I can live forever. And when I'm sick, I feel like a moon-faced Buddha. Right? Isn't that sort of how we feel sometimes when we're really healthy? I'm indomitable. I can live forever. And when I'm sick, I won't make it through the day. So the important point, of course, of this story is he's not just saying, when I'm healthy, I feel healthy. He says, I'm a healthy Buddha. And when I'm sick, I'm a sick Buddha. moon-faced Buddha, the essential point being that you're a Buddha in either case. So I think that's a little bit more difficult for us.

[06:35]

We get the concept that we're supposed to be a Buddha when we're sick, but we don't feel very much like a Buddha when we're sick. We feel much more like being a Buddha when we're healthy, right? I feel like I can be awake to my life when I'm healthy. I don't feel like being awake to my life when I'm sick. So this is the case, a story about how do you accept your situation no matter what it is. And it's a dramatic example of it because the situation is you're gravely ill. And Tsukiroshi made a comment on this in his book. He did a commentary on this case in one of his lectures in Not Always So, which is quite beautiful. I'm just going to take a couple of paragraphs from it. But he says, this is quite simple. Whatever happens to Matsu, great Master Ma, he can accept things as it is. But we cannot accept everything.

[07:36]

We may accept something we think is good, but if we dislike something, we won't accept it. And we compare things. He is a good student. Zen student, but I am not. This understanding may be quite usual, but finally you cannot figure out what idea is reliable. It's an easy concept to get, right? That we have to be able to accept whatever feeling we're having, whatever situation we're in, and accept that If we can be awake in that situation, we can be a Buddha. So we can be a sleepy Buddha. We can be an angry Buddha. We can be all kinds of different Buddhas if we are willing to accept what our situation is. But this is not so easy. Recently, I was reminded of this story because three weeks ago, one of my oldest members of my sangha in Mill Valley, oldest meaning...

[08:45]

age old, he was over 90 years old, and also oldest, he'd been in the Sangha the Longest, died. And he was kind of like Great Master Ma. He was a very big person, had lived a long life. He was a World War II bomber pilot. He was a Shakespearean actor. He worked with Timothy Leary during that phase of his life. He was a PhD clinical therapist and a teacher. He lived a big life. But in the end, you know, to be with him as he struggled with being ill, gravely ill, is you realize how difficult this is. It's not so easy to accept your situation, whatever it is. But this teaching is a teaching that says this is not just for when you're... gravely ill, but for every moment of your life, because at every moment of your life, whatever you thought you were supposed to be experiencing is certainly not what you're experiencing, right?

[09:52]

Isn't it surprising how often whatever feeling situation we find ourselves in is different than we expected it to be? So this is this teaching of trying to first really accept and be with whatever situation we're in, is a very important teaching in Zen. And I thought I would bring forth a famous story that is sometimes told in conjunction with this koan. It's a story of Hakuen, an 18th century Japanese Zen master. And he was the temple priest and very highly regarded for his virtue and very respected in the village. And a beautiful... girl in the village got pregnant. And the parents demanded to know who was the father, and she was so embarrassed about it that she didn't want to confess who the actual father was, so she said that Hakuen was the father.

[10:53]

And, of course, the parents were just quite outraged by this and confronted Hakuen with their daughter's accusation, and he simply replied, Is that so? And they handed the baby to him and said, well, since it's your baby, you take care of it. So Hakuen took the baby and started taking care of it. Apparently it was a baby that needed to be taken care of, so he did that. And for a few months, he took good care of the baby. And finally, the daughter of the parents felt so regretful and confessed that this young man in the village was actually the father. The parents were so totally ashamed because by this time the entire village had ostracized Hakuen and weren't making contributions to the temple anymore. He was not considered the great priest he was anymore. They went up and they apologized and said he was such a great priest for doing this and how wonderful.

[11:58]

And they said, can we have the baby back? And he gave the baby back. And after they had finished saying all this and how wonderfully magnificent he was, he said, is that so? saw this story of acceptance on a radical scale. We could kind of maybe criticize Hakuin for, you know, being a little too passive. I mean, maybe he should have defended himself after all his entire reputation, his job, his income was all at stake here. And his comments were, is that so? So I don't think this is an actual true story. This is an apocryphal story, a story that sort of exemplifies something. And the point is not so much that this is how we shouldn't defend ourselves if we're falsely accused. We should, but the issue here is, wouldn't it be wonderful if we had the inner composure, the balance to accept whatever happens, whatever was presented to us, with equanimity and appreciation for the event?

[13:07]

Or as Brother David said, with gratitude. Wouldn't it be wonderful if we had that capacity when confronted with a situation, let's say that dramatic, that unjust, that we had that kind of capacity so that when we actually did defend ourselves, we defended ourselves not from a place of desperation and fear, but a place of solidity and composure. That's the story of acceptance. So we don't need to necessarily go all the way to Hakawin or various other places. We can reflect on our own life and all the difficulties we have in accepting either physical injuries, emotional injuries,

[14:12]

problems, difficulties at work, problems relating to other people, any of those issues, how well can we first accept that this is what we're experiencing, this is the situation we're in, before we decide to act or as the basis for our action. And then the question becomes, well, what is our action? Because now... We do have to act. I mean, that is our life. Our life is not to just go along accepting things, but to act. And for that part, I refer back to the pointer, that is the introduction to this case, where it says, this way we'll do, not this way we'll do too. This way we'll do, not this way we'll do too. You know the this way we'll do not, this way we'll do too business.

[15:13]

When I was first a Zen student, it was back in the hippie days. All is good, all is one, all is love. Whatever's happening is cool, right? Doesn't matter, you know. This way we'll do, that way we'll do, doesn't matter. which way anyway is cool because it's all love, it's all one, it's all oneness. That's the this way we'll do, not this way we'll do too. And the commentary here is that is too diffuse. I would say that's pretty diffuse. That's not too good. That's too diffuse. It's not okay to just, yes, yes, we are all one, but that doesn't mean, and we're all Buddha, but that doesn't mean that... whatever we do is okay, right? The second statement here is this way won't do, not this way won't do either. That is too cut off. So the first way, this way we'll do, this way we'll do too.

[16:17]

The first way is like everything's okay. You're perfect. You can't make a mistake. The second way is this way won't do and not this way won't do either. That means nothing you do is right, right? Whatever you do is wrong. It's impossible. You're just basically making one mistake after another. So one of the examples one uses around the monastery for these things is how you ring bells. Everything's cool. If I don't quite ring the bell at the right place, that's okay. It doesn't really, you know, whatever. We're all one. We're just practicing together. Well, maybe that's not so good. On the other hand, if every time you strike the bell, it's not quite right, and you feel criticized, and you get all uptight, and it's never quite right, then that's not so good either. And his comment there is, this way won't do, not this way won't do either. This is too cut off.

[17:18]

If you're too strict with yourself, if you can never get it right, no matter what you do, it's too cut off. You're not alive. You're not connected. You have no compassion in your life. You're not feeling the compassionate connection to all things, that it is okay to be making these mistakes. So, of course, this is our problem. How do we balance these two? On the one hand, it's all okay what I do, and on the other hand, there's nothing that I can do that's right. So, without trending in either of these two paths, what would be right? That's what the pointer says. What is the right way to do it? How do we do that? I remember one time Shohaku Okamura was here. He was giving a class on something and someone asked him a question similar to this. And he said, well, you know, when you do a gasho bow, you put your hands like this and you try to do it pretty good. You know, as best you can. You don't have your fingers like this or like that.

[18:19]

You know, you try to do it pretty good. And then you bow and you give up trying to do it pretty good. And you let yourself go into the feeling of whatever a bow is. Which is, of course, something can't possibly be described because a bow is something bigger than anything we can understand. And certainly one can't say, well, that's not such a good bow. It's not quite, you know. So, I mean, you can say all those things. So, this is Hiroshi's commentary on this particular... direction we're going, the point of what do we do is, the point is to attain complete composure. Ordinary effort associated with comparative thinking will not help. When you are sitting, I say, don't think. Don't think means not to treat things in terms of good or bad or heavy or light. Just accept things as it is.

[19:19]

He then goes on to talk at some length about sitting. which is something I notice he does in almost every one of his lectures, because for Suzuki Roshi and for us in this lineage, sitting is the ground place we go to to find the composure we need to accept things as it is. And... part of our practice in sitting because it's sometimes physically difficult, but mostly it's emotionally difficult because you sit there at the end of your day and get to review all of the mistakes you made or all the ways somebody mistreated you or you mistreated somebody and you get to sit and settle in that. And so for us, this practice of zazen becomes the cornerstone of our developing the composure to accept things as it is. And, of course, he ends that paragraph of talking about Zazen with, the way you can do this is to concentrate on your posture and your breathing.

[20:31]

This is something we weren't taught in fifth grade. We should have been taught in fifth grade that concentrating on our posture and breathing would be a good way to develop the composure, to have the equanimity we need to live a life of wisdom and compassion. but thankfully it wandered over from Japan to America during our lifetime. Anyway, Sigeroshi goes on and he says, We should understand our everyday activity in two ways and be able to react either way without a problem. One way is to understand dualistically, good or bad, right or wrong, and we try to understand in these terms. Yet we should also be able to let go of this dualistic understanding, and then everything is one. That is the other understanding, the understanding of oneness. So I kind of think that's nice, because a lot of times in Zen Center we talk about no dualistic thinking, right?

[21:37]

Forget dualistic thinking. We're just going to be on the oneness side. But Sugi Rashi is quite clear here. We're always thinking dualistically. So we might as well think dualistically as well as we can, you know. I'm sure some of you people who are working out there in those high-tech companies, when somebody comes and says, what do you think about this, they expect you to do some research and come up with a very clear dualistic answer to that question, right? And it's the same with our life. Sometimes we're confronted with problems and we actually have to think hard, think well, have quality thinking about what to do. So what is the non-dualistic part of our thinking? What does that feel like and mean to you? What do we mean when we're letting go of the dualistic thinking and opening up to something else? That's to open up to our...

[22:38]

connection to everything, oneness, our ongoing moment-by-moment connection to everybody and everything. And out of that connection is compassion. That's where our compassion comes from. It flows from the fact that we know that we're completely connected to everybody. And so the other way we act is we act through that sense of connection and compassion. So sometimes someone may come up to you and present you with a difficulty. They may tell you they're not so happy with you for some reason or some issue. Can you be completely present with them, connected to them in a way that you can feel what they're talking about before you become defended and immediately respond with an action that you might regret later?

[23:42]

At the same time, you can think about whether what they're saying makes sense, but the first thing is to feel your connection to their request and their effort. This dynamic interplay between oneness and duality is a kind of pivotal point in our practice. much, I mean the entire Sando Kai is a poem about how this works and this is a part of what makes Zen contradictory because it's not just that you emphasize duality and then you flip back and emphasize oneness it's more complicated than that if you observe your everyday you'll realize it's some sort of mix that's beyond both duality and oneness.

[24:48]

And so where does this activity flow from? How do we do this? Can we do this? Can we accept things as it is and act appropriately? How do we do that? This is kind of a question of honoring both the duality, the conditioned part of our life, the very specific part of who we are, the very individual part of who we are, and the universal part of ourselves, the unconditioned part, the part of us that is bigger than anything we can imagine we are. And so I thought, sort of to summarize this question, part of the discussion, I would read this beautiful passage, also a commentary on this same koan by Suzuki Roshi.

[25:52]

He says, although you are always looking forward to the bliss of teaching, you do not know that you are always in the midst of teaching. Well, that's a lovely sentence, isn't it? Right off the bat. Although you are always looking forward to the bliss of teaching, you do not know that you are always in the midst of teaching. So your practice does not accord with your teachers. Once you realize Buddha nature within and without, there is no special way for a student or any specific suggestion to give for a teacher. There's no way that's defined about how you're supposed to act or any definition of what a teacher should say. When there is a problem, there is a way to go. When there is a problem, there is a way to go. The problem tells you the way to go.

[26:54]

Actually, you continuously go over and over the great path of the Buddha with your teacher who is always with you. Many ways to interpret that. I think the easiest way to interpret that is you all have a teacher inside of you. You're your own teacher, and your own teacher is always with you to help you to go on the great path of Buddha. When we practice zazen, we commit ourselves to come back to our breath over and over again, no matter how many times we stray. I don't know about you, but I stray a lot when I'm sitting zazen. No matter how many times we stray, what do we do? We come back to our breath over and over again, content to let everything go as we exhale and accept everything that comes as we inhale.

[28:01]

It's a kind of physical feeling when you're exhaling, you're letting go of everything you're holding on to, and when you're inhaling, you're bringing new life in. both a metaphor and something real. To sit, returning over and over again to the simple feeling of just being alive. To sit, returning over and over again to the simple feeling of just being alive. No matter what content is present, the feeling of being alive no matter what content is present, no matter what content is going on, no matter how miserable you're feeling, how sick you are, how well you are, still you are alive and there is that feeling of being alive until finally we are never far from this feeling all day long. We trust it as primary. When we feel that way, then we have realized Buddha nature within and without

[29:10]

and there is no special way for us to follow. When it is moon-faced Buddha, that is the way to go. When it is sun-faced Buddha, that is the way to go. When something really difficult happens, there is the path, straight ahead, nothing but the path, no matter what happens. Beautiful words from Suzuki Roshi. So, we don't have question and answer today because of this half-day sitting we're doing, so we have about five or six minutes. If anybody has any comments or questions they'd like to put forward, we can do it here. Yes.

[30:15]

Age is a problem. Age is a very big thing to be dealt with. I'd like to ignore it personally, that subject. But... But yeah, I think it was... Anyway, I forget that. But this teaching says we can't. I think it's one of the most difficult things is to accept our aging. One of my great Zen friends wrote a book called Aging as a Spiritual Practice, how to practice with aging, how to keep letting go of the fact that we can't do what we could do when we were 25, Or 35? And I imagine you're a little bit over 50, so even when you're 50, you have to let go of that.

[31:17]

I think it's a real challenge, because we're so... I don't have this... I can't do many of the things physically I used to be able to do. And... One of my students Friday, when we were talking about another subject, is... has a very bad case of macular degeneration. He's losing his eyesight, which is more common these days. As people are living longer, age-related macular degeneration, you lose your eyesight. And we talked about it a little bit, and there's a marvelous book about a person who went blind, and he learned through going blind how to awaken all of his other senses and to make... And of course, it was one of those very inspiring books that talked about how his life was so much better now because he had woken up. So on the one hand, as we get older, we lose a lot of our physical capacities, but we're still alive.

[32:23]

We still have so much. We still have probably 99% of what we had, or maybe 99.9%. I don't know. Like when you don't have life anymore, that's zero, right? So if you've got life and you've lost your eyesight, you've still got 99.99%. And can we remember to appreciate that part that we have and accept that for... Anyway, not an easy practice, but... Is that enough? Anybody else have something? Natural causes. So wondering, does it sound like natural causes?

[33:34]

It's hard to accept. Yeah. The question was, she's had several friends, did you say? Four friends die in their 40s? In the last three months. Boy, that is... difficult to accept for you and I imagine impossible to accept for the families and spouses. In my sangha I had a forty-year-old man die and his wife has a four-year-old child. How you deal with that is one doesn't know. I had another young woman lose her daughter too recently. Grieving is, you know, they have books, The Ten Steps of Grieving or The Seven Steps. You know, my experience with grieving is that everybody finds their own route through it, and you really have to honor and accept whatever it is that you're experiencing as the foundation ground for coping with it.

[34:43]

And I was talking to somebody yesterday who, it's been three years since they lost a daughter, and it's worse now. We always say it gets better over time. It's worse. This is just one of those very difficult facts of life. I think facing it as best you can is the root, and grieving together. In our sangha, I think we support each other in grieving the loss. our best friends. I'm sorry. Someone else have something? You mentioned that we're our own teacher.

[35:46]

well, there's a fully awake one in you. That's for sure. So that's your teacher, and you just have to tune into that versus the crazy one. And one way to do that is to sit down, and the crazy one sort of goes like, and then all of a sudden the awake one is there going, wow. Wow. 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.

[36:55]

May we fully enjoy the Dharma.

[36:58]

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