This podcast is offered by the San Francisco Zen Center on the web at sfzc.org. Our public programs are made possible by donations from people like you. Good morning, everybody. Thank you so much for coming to Green Gulch Farm, Green Dragon Temple today. a beautiful day washed clean by the surprising rain yesterday and still it takes some effort to get here so i appreciate you all taking that time again to turn towards something that is important to turn towards something that's quieter than the hubbub of everyday life.

[01:08]

In other words, just to be alive, to remember that we're alive, to feel and connect with this act of our being alive. That's why I think you came. Maybe you have a different story this morning. That's why I came. And then, as usual, coming with that idea and that hope, I have a little bit of a problem. Hey, everybody, be alive. One. Two. We want, I think, deeply, I want, I think many of us here want deeply to be intimate with our being alive.

[02:12]

It's this most basic, most important thing. We've been at it for quite some time. So we should really know something about it. And it keeps slipping away. How can it be this one thing that we are actually an expert at? What is a measure expertise by number of hours? So how many? We've put in a lot of hours. And we haven't quite gotten it. We haven't quite caught it. And so then we come with this intention and we come in and we see on this board that calls us to the hall. We see these words. You don't have much time. Life is passing quickly. Life and death, being alive, is the most important thing. Don't miss it. Wake up. And so we say, okay. But then what are we going to do?

[03:16]

How are we going to get any closer to it? So I catch myself all the time, especially around Dharma talks, which is why this is often my theme. Because, you know, okay, let's be fully alive. What do you do? There's some kind of squeeze. You know, you may see Zen students sometimes kind of screw up their face. You know, we're kind of, a lot of us are rather tense because we're always kind of like trying to get fully alive. like that there's some kind of special effort to get closer to that we feel, and we really do feel in our life, we feel farther away from our being alive, and we want to do some practice to bring us closer, and that's so beautiful and so important, and that's what this whole tradition is about.

[04:17]

And yet, anything we do doesn't get us any closer or any farther from it. It's just what we are together right here. So this, as we settle into Zen practice or as we settle into our life, into this practice of connecting, really being with our life, there's a way of not trying to grab a hold of it. This kind of quieter, more mature way of being fully alive. It's not about trying to get a handle on it. but it's some kind of backward step, some kind of letting go, some kind of letting it flow through and as us.

[05:22]

This morning I keep having the image of a little toddler on a big beach with a giant beach ball. Think a beach ball like five times the size of the toddler, with these tiny little hands, trying to get the ball. That's how I'm feeling about my efforts to be fully alive, to really be alive. Can't quite get my little tiny hands around this giant beach ball. And what a delight, you know. The sun is shining, the birds are chirping. Being totally defeated by this giant ball. Or then maybe we get frustrated, you know, and the toddler collapses into the snotty sand and just sobs. Maybe we can relate to both in our efforts to kind of get, just hold still for a minute, life, so I can be intimate with you.

[06:30]

So in the Buddhist teaching, the problem we have here is that when we want to know or feel something that is an object, it's something outside of us that we want to relate to. So the ordinary way that we know or are intimate with something is because it's out there as an object and then we can... know it or meet it. But our life isn't really an object like that. If anything, it's more like the eye. It's more like the subject on this side of that meeting. But it's not exactly that either. It's not really the part over here or the part out there. It's just this whole giant ball that we can't quite get our hands around. friend recently shared with me some lines from Suzuki Roshi our founder of the San Francisco Zen Center he said only the subtle mind which is soft and tender can catch anything by tender I don't mean some emotional feeling I mean a subtle feeling that will be obtained by our practice

[08:15]

The mind we obtain in our practice is very subtle and at the same time very great. This is Zen mind. I've been appreciating this and letting it in, this image of the tender and subtle mind. Not just tender in the sense of warm, overflowing heart, but as a kind of open, soft, subtle tenderness in our being. It's not even mind exactly. That's the whole being, the whole body and mind, tender and subtle. as a way to be intimate with what's happening here.

[09:24]

Your being alive, my being alive right now. That kind of subtle and tender mind isn't really catching anything. That's sort of the point of it. But it's intimate. subtle and it's great. Suzuki Roshi also often uses this image or this example of his gaze and he says when I'm looking out at the meditation hall I'm not looking at any of you and so I can see all of you. It's a very natural thing you may be able to relate to. When you're looking at something in particular You can't see other stuff.

[10:24]

But when your eyes are tender and subtle, then you can see the whole field. You can see everyone because you're not trying to see anyone in particular. So I think this subtle, tender mind is like that. Before we've made it into anything, that subtle, tender mind is there receiving our life before we make it into anything. Not sure right now if you are practicing this subtle, tender mind, or maybe just don't know what I'm talking about. Can't tell by your faces. So I want to catch, and this is my problem as a Zen student, I want to be intimate with being alive. I want to catch this life while I have it.

[11:28]

I want to become it fully. So here's a story about that that I wanted to share this morning. This is case number 55 from the Blue Cliff Record, which is one of our collections of old Zen stories from ancient China. It's a story about two great Dharma friends and practitioners named Dao Wu and Jian Yuan. And it's called Dao Wu and Jian Yuan Offer Condolences. It'd be a familiar story to some of you. It's a long story, but I'll just tell the first part. It goes on for generations, actually, the story. But I'll just tell the first little part. Da Wu and Jian Yuan visited a household that was in mourning to offer their condolences.

[12:40]

Jian Yuan struck the coffin with his hand and asked, Alive or dead? Da Wu said, I'm not saying alive. I'm not saying dead. Jian Yuan asked, why won't you say? Dao Wu said, I'm not saying. I'm not saying. And I think it degenerates from there. to stubborn monks. But raising this really deep and obvious and strange question, alive or dead, pounding on the coffin, alive or dead, that seems like the most basic question, the easiest question, is a non-question.

[13:55]

That thing's alive and that thing's dead. There's no question. So we here at Green Dragon Temple are a household in mourning, as many of you know and some of you may not know. Our friend and Dharma sister Caroline died 48 days ago. 49 days is an important marker for us in the Buddhist tradition. And it was 48 days ago today that Caroline died. And she's very close today because this afternoon we'll be offering a funeral service right here for her and for each other. So

[14:59]

as many of you know, but some of you don't know, Caroline, 48 days ago, had not returned from a day hike out where she was living at Tassajara, our practice center deep in the mountains around Big Sur. Over the next few days, an extensive search was conducted by the residents and by whole giant, generous teams of people. And I want to take a moment, a little bit off track here, just to acknowledge how moving and how devastating that search was. process was of course most of all for the family of Caroline and also for all of those of us who loved her and in particular the residents at Tassajara and those teams that were searching for her as folks from Tassajara come up and share their stories I

[16:28]

feeling more and more deeply how intense and amazing an experience that was for everyone involved to be for five days, all day and all night, hiking, climbing up and down these harsh mountains, on the trails and off the trails, up the ravines, down the creeks, calling out her name in vain. And sleeping for a minute and going out again. Having a flicker of hope and then losing it. And then another flicker and then losing it. One of the countless awakening stories that have come from that process I wanted to share briefly. This friend who shared with me, and I had known this about him, that he had a view, he suffered with a view that the universe doesn't care one whit about us.

[17:48]

That the universe is cold and dead and basically inhospitable. And that we humans here are trying to do this thing and loving each other as part of that. But that's this extra thing that we're adding into this vast cold space of the universe, the rock and the physics of bodies and gravity. Absolutely. cold and aloof. And at walking, calling out Caroline's name and hearing the mountain be completely unmoved by the call, calling her name and just feeling that, hearing the echo into this

[18:59]

void of an uncaring universe. So as he walked, this sense of alienation and distance, could even say meaninglessness maybe in this cold universe, was just deepening and deepening the more he called out and did not hear any warmth back. So then at one point in the search on a short break, he sat down with some of the team that he was searching with and he heard a little bit more of their stories and finally understood, which I think took a lot of us a minute to understand, that all of those hundred people searching these trains, search and rescue teams, were all or almost all volunteers. So he started to hear some of their stories that they had worked all day and then

[20:00]

drove all night to get to Tassajara so that they could hike and search a day with the community, that everyone had come with no idea of reward, but just from compassion and kindness and generosity, kind of love for someone that they didn't know. he noticed that the kindness that was all around him was actually the kindness of the universe. Get out of my way while I look for life itself. Get out of my way while I look for the universe. The universe is cold. I know you're being nice to me, but you're not the universe. The universe is out there behind you.

[21:01]

being cold and vast and empty void. So Norman Fisher was here recently, and he said, you think you're on the earth. You are not on the earth. You are the earth. What else are you? You are the earth. We're not like a guest here. We're not some incidental or kind of extra part of the universe or of life itself, the totality here. You know what I mean? It's us. The kindness, the love that he was feeling from these people is the way that the love of the universe is manifesting. This was such a powerful insight for him that when he shared it, it became right away a powerful insight for me, and I wanted to share it this morning in acknowledgement and appreciation for the many labors and the many stories of that group that was in the mountains together through this event.

[22:13]

We aren't separate. each other or from this place we are we are it so then a few days after her death about 43 days ago the Monterey Sheriff's Office had a press conference updating the public on the of the search and rescue. The sheriff was respectful and straightforward and describing the work of this team that had rappelled down into this steep area and found her.

[23:19]

She said something that was quite heartbreaking and strange. She said, the search and rescue team was then able to determine that she was deceased. Caroline had been dead for five days at the base of this beautiful cliff following this tragic, accidental, freak accident all. It was completely obvious that she was dead. And yet, in the words of the sheriff, this kind of sincerity to say there was a discernment that needed to be made in this important matter of life and death. So Jian Yuan asks, alive or dead? And the sheriff said, dead.

[24:24]

And Dao Wu says, I'm not saying alive. I'm not saying dead. So alive or dead, this has been a question in my heart. Not about, not just about someone else. Are they alive or dead? But about me, myself. You, yourself right now. Alive or dead? Will you say? In the Buddha's teaching, there is this deep principle that every single distinction we make, every set of opposites that we set up, even the most obvious and useful and important opposites, like alive and dead, or me and you, or is and isn't, or here and there.

[25:41]

Every single one of these distinctions, fundamentally, if they're graphed to, misses the point of our single inseparable, ungraspable, inconceivable, giant, beach ball being. Every time, which is all day and all night, every time we say that is and that isn't, this is me, that's you, this is here, that's there. This boundless, bright, inseparable, whole, become something fixed and divided, and we lose our ground. We lose something whole and true about what it is to be alive.

[26:44]

The tender and subtle mind is there before we get into that. But we really tend to grab pretty tight to is and isn't, me and you, here and there, alive or dead. And in doing so, we are alienated from the wholeness that's right here. Caroline had this vow. She said, the way of wholeness is true. May I belong to it completely. So to say, alive or dead, me or you, is or isn't. We are looking past the tender, subtle body-mind that is our wholeness.

[28:07]

There's this principle, you know, in our life that's easy to see where when we're not so intimate with something, we think we know what it is. And then we get intimate with it and we realize we have no idea what it is. Dogen Zenji puts it, our 13th century founder in Japan of the school of Zen, Soto Zen, Dogen Zenji says, You know, when you have some distance from the practice, you know what the practice is. And when you're just in the practice, you have no idea what the practice is. When you're not so close to someone, you know who they are. Oh, yeah, I know Joe. Joe's like this. When you really know Joe, you know. Nobody knows.

[29:30]

Nobody can say. Alive or dead. I don't even know if he's alive or dead. It's a giant beach ball, and I just have these tiny little hands. So the intimacy and the not knowing, as soon as we say, I know, even something so basic, like I know that I'm alive, and I know that Caroline's dead. Even something so basic is, already not intimate. So Dawu says, I'm not saying. I'm not saying. And then, of course, he chants for the deceased. So I want to say just one thing, one more thing about our practice this morning.

[30:37]

One thing of the million things I could say about Caroline and about this process of her living and dying in intimacy. I just want to make one more point. And that's something about the fact that has been really obvious to me, which is that Caroline's practice was complete. So I noticed right away that I had this feeling that I didn't even for a moment have the feeling like... oh no, now that Caroline's dead, she can't fulfill or finish her Zen practice. I was and am brokenhearted, and I have never had the thought, too bad for her Zen practice.

[31:50]

I was her Zen teacher, so it would be reasonable for me to think. I'm so sad that she can't finish this project that we started together. I'm so sad that she can't finish the spiritual work that she began. I didn't have that feeling at all. I just had the feeling that start to finish, every moment of her practice was complete. Say, every moment of practice is equally wholeness. of practice and of awakening, every moment of it, beginning, middle, and end. So I want to be really clear here. I'm not saying that Caroline's practice in particular was so great that it was complete in each moment. Some of my other students here might think,

[32:56]

Well, Jerry would think that Caroline's practice was complete in every moment. But when I die, he'll say, oh, too bad. She really might have gotten the point eventually. Caroline's practice was special. She was a very sincere and deep person, totally accountable to her vows, to her heart. and her mind every moment. So that was her karma, and that was the gift that she received and transmitted. But that's not the basis of the completeness of every moment of her practice, every moment of her being alive. That is just the fact of each of our life. Every moment of our aliveness is complete and whole.

[34:01]

And our practice is that. Our practice is, this moment of my life is complete and whole. This is why we do this very strange practice of sitting, not doing anything. Because just now, right as we sit, our life is whole and complete. And yet we feel often that our practice isn't complete. Sometimes, you know, that we're doing okay. We're starting to get the hang of it. We just need a little more time and it's going to come together. We mostly think that we're missing something and that's our suffering. And Zen practice is pointing us to this more difficult to grasp. and appreciate truth, which is our life in this moment is whole and complete.

[35:07]

The full expression of the wisdom and compassion of all the Buddhas. So around the time that Caroline died, a group of us, a group that Caroline for a good time had been part of, we were studying Suzuki Roshi's comments on another Zen story, which is case one of the Blue Cliff Record. And that's the story of the exchange between Bodhidharma and Emperor Wu. So I want to end here with some comments from Suzuki Roshi on Bodhidharma and Emperor Wu. So to summarize just a little bit, the emperor had been a great patron of Buddhism in China. He had sort of built up Buddhism as a presence, as a thing in China by building temples and supporting monasteries and monks and sponsoring ceremonies and also himself studying and practicing Buddhism.

[36:22]

And then he has the chance to meet Bodhidharma, who is this mythical Indian Zen monk, bringing this new form, this different form of Buddhism called Zen to China. And they have a face-to-face meeting. And Bodhidharma dismisses all of the emperor's accomplishments with... utter disregard. Just a wave of a hand, meaning the emperor, he says, oh, there's not been any merit in any of the stuff you've done to make China into a Buddhist country. The emperor does. The emperor has nothing to say. He doesn't understand. So Suzuki Roshi said, The emperor seemed to be a great supporter of Buddhism, but the way he supported it was materialistic.

[37:31]

It was based on accumulating merit. He was trying to accumulate practice and observe ceremonies. He was trying to accumulate intellectual or philosophical understandings of Buddhism. That was his way. The emperor's way was many comes first. his understanding and his way was more or less that through the accumulation of many things, something eventually would become great. Like this line, because it's how I think. Through the accumulation of many things, something eventually would become great. Through the accumulation of my practice, eventually, something great. So our way is different. Our way is Bodhidharma's way.

[38:33]

So here's how Suzuki Roshi describes that way. Bodhidharma's way was to start from nothing, to start from one. For us, emptiness comes first, one comes first, and many comes next. Modi Dharma's way was no merit comes first. Emptiness comes first. The one big, great, empty being comes first. It was the opposite of the emperor's way. So the tender and subtle body and mind receiving this one big great empty being in this whole and complete moment of ungraspable inconceivable aliveness is our way it's not building to anything it's not going anywhere we get nothing out of it

[39:46]

He continues, it is very important for us to understand what Bodhidharma said because we may be going about our practice in the realm of duality based on accumulation of many meritorious things. We may think, I have practiced for three years, four years, ten years. When we do so, how many comes first and our practice doesn't make sense. We will be regretful later if we practice in that way. I have been practicing Zazen so many years, but nothing has happened. That will be how you feel after accumulating your practice, accumulating the merit of practice. the great Buddhist viewpoint, it is just a speck of dust.

[40:55]

Even if you say, for my whole life I have been practicing zazen, whole life is just a speck. You know, just one moment. When you become old or when you are dying, your one life, your 60 or 70 or 100 years of life is just one moment. Accumulation of many doesn't make sense. Oh, this moment of practice is complete and whole and is the only point. And Caroline's death made that so clear for me for a moment to promptly forget again and start trying to build up my practice. I'm building up my practice.

[41:56]

Just this moment, Breathing out. Breathing in. The big, great, empty being. The ten very subtle mind that won't even say alive or dead. That won't even say Next moment, last moment. But that's just right here. Zuki Roshi also says, you know, if the emperor had understood that, then he could have asked about the merit.

[43:12]

That would have been okay. It's okay to ask what we're going to get out of it. But only second. One big, great, empty being now comes first. That's the ground. That's the basis. So, of course, being intimate with death, the obvious fact that we might as well love each other while we're here is so close.

[44:18]

Thank you so much for your kind attention this morning, for entering with me into this koan of being alive. Any merit, any good that comes from our effort to meet this fully, to fully be ourselves, to fully be this aliveness we offer to all suffering beings. With so much yet to take care of for the funeral this afternoon, I think there won't be time for questions. Again, thank you very much for coming.

[45:47]

Please cherish yourself and each other. And please welcome and cultivate the tender, subtle, Mahodian mind that can receive this life before making it into something. 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.

[46:54]

May we fully enjoy the Dharma.

[46:57]

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