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 by people like you. Is this too loud? No? It just sounds like it for a moment. As I... Offered incense, I noticed the name Ananda Dahlenberg on the altar. And I just wanted to mention, for those of you who know him and those of you who may not know, Ananda died earlier this week. And tomorrow afternoon at the city center, we'll have a short... Funeral service for him, and then we'll do another memorial later on.

[01:04]

Maybe a bigger event later on, but this is particularly for the close family. When I came to Zen Center in 1972, one of the regular Dharma teachers was Claude Dahlenberg. And... He'd give these very simple, simple Dharma talks. I remember one talk where he. I just I just remembered he said, no matter, never mind. No mind doesn't matter. No matter, never mind. He just repeated it over and over for maybe a half an hour. So I couldn't forget it.

[02:13]

And he gave a talk, I remember, on the paramita, the perfection of Kshanti, a paramita, which we usually translate as patience. I thought it was very important that we understand that it was really important to understand it was forbearance. Patience and forbearance. What's the difference between patience and forbearance and the quality of actually having to bear what's difficult? He himself had to do a lot of bearing what's difficult the last few years of his life. He had a stroke and was mostly unable to get up and move around, communicate very clearly. And then last week he stopped eating and drinking and

[03:19]

After about five days, actually, then he stopped, his heart stopped beating, and he stopped breathing. At some point, he wanted to change his name. He changed his name from Claude to Ananda. And originally, Claude Dahlenberg had been one of the members of, say, the beat community. poet generation. He's in Jack Kerouac's book on the road under, does anyone remember the name? I think Diefenbacher or something like that. So, huh? I don't think it was Bud, Diefenbacher. Anyway, so if any of you read on the road, you may. see some references to to Diefenbacher, Dahlenberg.

[04:29]

And when San Francisco Zen Center was organized as a legal entity shortly thereafter, Tassajara was acquired. And then I think I think Claude was the president. San Francisco Zen Center for a while, and when they were looking for a building, and he found, I think along with Silas Hodley, found the 300 Stage, 300 Page Street building, and brought Suzuki Roshi over there, and he liked it, and so that has now become San Francisco City Center. So he's one of our founders, and... I want to pay my respects to him and express my gratitude for his efforts and his practice and his willingness to help the Sangha and to remember no matter, never mind.

[05:46]

So here we are tonight at Green Gulch. I don't know how he felt about Green Gulch, actually. I don't remember him being out here very much. Full moon night. And there's an eclipse, but I think it'll be over by the time we come out of this room. It's the beginning of practice period, first Dharma talk here on Wednesday night here in this practice period. And I wanted to talk a little bit about the spirit of this Soto Zen lineage, and then also talk about the basic practice of mindfulness.

[06:54]

There's a phrase, mimitsu no kafu, which is used to describe the flavor of Soto Zen. It's translated as a very considerate and respectful style of practice. Very respectful and considerate way. And we then apply that actually, hopefully, to everything. Being respectful and considerate of each other. and respectful and considerate of each thing. So we apply this to the forms of our practice.

[08:00]

Tomorrow we will have an oryoki meal here in the zendo. Will we have it in the zendo? If we decide we'll have it in the zendo. So with Oryoki, it's just one example of how we actually apply our respect and consideration for each thing. So for those, some of you may not know, Oryoki is a set of several bowls wrapped up in cloth with utensils for eating and cleaning the eating bowls. And there's a big bowl the Buddha bowl and there's a middle bowl and there's a small, small bowl and there's a spoon and chopsticks and a little stick with a cloth wrapping on the end which is used for scraping and cleaning the bowls.

[09:05]

So each thing is a part of the oryoki, each utensil and the cloth that gathers them up and then the cloth for wiping the bowls the napkin. And it's an example of our practice that each bowl and each utensil is given its own respect and cared for in its own way. So the Buddha bowl is actually equal value with the small bowl. And that Spoon is equal value with the chopsticks. So to say that we have consideration and respect for each thing means that we give each thing its complete value and see its virtue as it is. It would be kind of silly to have the idea that the small bowl is aspiring to become the Buddha bowl.

[10:15]

unfortunate existence is that it doesn't get to be the Buddha bowl. Poor small bowl. And maybe if it performs well in this lifetime, in a future lifetime, it could become a Buddha bowl. We regard each as its own, having its own pure characteristics. So this is sometimes called virtue, that it's inherent a being, his virtue. In the Tao Te Ching, that's the de, Tao de, the way, Tao, and the virtue. So each thing has its own complete, you could say, its own complete, true, valid existence. And so it's respected, respected as it is. It's maybe easy to see that with bowls, right? We don't think that We really don't think that, okay, this small bowl is going to eventually graduate and become the Buddha bowl.

[11:23]

But maybe we tend to think that way about ourselves. That we think, oh, if I do this and this and this, then I will become Buddha. Or I will become a better person. Or people will like me. Or if so-and-so, if some other person becomes, if someone else becomes nicer and they don't treat me so mean, then they will be different and more appealing and I can appreciate them. But now I can't appreciate them because their mind is narrow and small. It's not really showing much evidence of being a Buddha mind. If they had a Buddha mind, they wouldn't have talked to me. They wouldn't have criticized me in such a mean and nasty way, or they wouldn't have neglected me. So we tend to think in terms of this comparative value with each other, rather than seeing each other with absolute value.

[12:32]

So absolute value means that the small bowl is equal to the Buddha bowl, but it doesn't mean that we treat them equally. We treat them according to the nature of each bowl. So we actually do different things with the Buddha bowl. We actually hold it in a different way. When we do the offering, when we chant, we pick up the Buddha bowl. We don't pick up the little bowl. Why don't we pick up the little bowl? Does the little bowl feel left out? All the time we're picking up the Buddha bowl. So actually it's picking up the Buddha bowl that is respecting the small bowl. Respecting the small bowl, we let it sit there. And the Buddha bowl has its place and the small bowl has its place. So this is actually a way in which we work with our understanding of respect and consideration for each thing. Very careful.

[13:37]

So this idea then that Each being is its own manifestation, you could say, of Buddha. It's not quite right, because if you say manifestation of Buddha, it sounds like there's some other Buddha someplace else. But actually, you yourself are Buddha. The small bull itself is Buddha. This is our Mahayana understanding. And so... In the practice of mindfulness we bring this kind of respectful attention to each, just as it is, without comparing it to something else. And at the same time we realize that each is different and so we take care of it according to its own needs, according to its own position, its own function, its own needs, its own shape.

[14:43]

So the Mahayana understanding then of the practice of mindfulness is that you bring mindfulness to each, say, aspect of your body, your mind, your feelings, the environment, the phenomena around you, according to its own virtue. that it is exactly what it is, and it is a complete manifestation of Buddha, a complete manifestation of the perfection of things. It may be that in the classical texts on mindfulness, that there's a sense of progression, that, okay, that first stage is pretty weak, And later stages are strong.

[15:53]

And you want to get from the weak stage to the strong stage. But you have to be careful to not disregard the value of the beginning stage. And the founder of San Francisco's Zen Center, Suzuki Roshi emphasized that by saying that beginner's mind and Zen mind are equal. Beginner's mind, Zen mind, equal. Not the same, but equal. Equal value and equally true. And equally what we would call big mind. Equally Buddha. So with that little introduction, I want to talk about the four foundations of mindfulness as presented in the Satipatthana Sutta, which I think is the most important of all the Pali texts, particularly for Zen students, that the basic teaching of mindfulness really helps us

[17:13]

And we may use it in various ways. Now, I had been sitting, I'd say, for maybe seven or eight years before I heard of the foundations of mindfulness. That wasn't taught when I was beginning my Zen practice. But when I heard, then when I heard the foundations of mindfulness, and I began to study that, I thought, Oh yes, of course, yes, I've been doing that. Over the course of seven, eight years of sitting, these various practices may naturally occur. But in the interest of recognizing that now it's 2008, it's no longer 1972, it's good to maybe to actually teach a little bit about the foundations of mindfulness.

[18:20]

So when Thich Nhat Hanh came and visited at Green Gulch, I think it was maybe 1979 or something like that, I think about the first time, but he came and he talked about mindfulness and the foundations of mindfulness. The translation of the Diganakaya, by Maurice Walsh contains a little note about the Satipatthana Sutta, about the teaching on mindfulness. And he says this, this Sutta is generally regarded as the most important Sutta in the entire Pali Canon. He agrees with me. And of course, I'm biased because I haven't read the entire Pali Canon. He probably has. But it's comforting to know that, right?

[19:21]

That we have this agreement. And he goes on to cite a comment by Jnanapanika Thera, who worked with this in another book called The Heart of Buddhist Meditation, which was published in 1954. And Jnanapanika said, among the Mahayana schools, It is chiefly the Chinese Chan and Japanese Zen that are closest to the spirit of Satipatthana. Notwithstanding the differences in method, aim, and basic philosophical conceptions, the connecting links with Satipatthana are close and strong, and it is regrettable that they have hardly been stressed or noticed. So he gives a kind of passing reference to differences in method, aim, and basic philosophical conception. And I think it's okay that he gives just a passing reference to those differences.

[20:22]

There's something that's fundamentally the same and true to the experience of being a human being when you sit down and stop what you're doing and become silent. no matter what your philosophical conceptions are, that you actually bodily take up this practice of sitting. And the practice of sitting then is shared by all these different Buddhist schools. So fundamentally, although we may have some different philosophical conceptions of what Buddhism is, even what we're doing, how we describe it, fundamentally there's something that we deeply share. the body. We have a deeply shared, I'll say, information and quality of mind because we actually are doing this practice. Taking the practice from the philosophical conception into the embodiment of the teaching.

[21:33]

Then the translator says, it should be noted that since those words were written in 1954, the realization has begun to dawn that Zen has much in common with Theravada in general, in the Sadhipatthana method in particular, somewhat to the surprise of those who have overstressed the uniqueness of Zen. So we don't want to be guilty of that. So this is the introduction to the Satipatthana Sutta. Thus have I heard, once the Lord was staying among the Kurus. It says, Lord, this is Shakyamuni Buddha. Once the Lord was staying among the Kurus, there is a market town of theirs called Kama Sadama. And there the Lord addressed the monks saying, There is this one way to the purification of beings, for the overcoming of sorrow and distress, for the disappearance of pain and sadness, for the gaining of the right path, for the realization of Nibbana.

[22:51]

That is to say, the four foundations of mindfulness. What are the four? Here a follower of the way abides contemplating body as body, ardent, clearly aware and mindful, having put aside hankering and fretting for the world. She abides contemplating feelings as feelings. She abides contemplating mind as mind. She abides contemplating mind objects as mind objects, ardent, clearly aware and mindful, having put aside hankering and fretting for the world. So there's a sense in which people here for the practice period coming and taking up residence and devoting their full attention to this practice for the eight weeks of this practice period have put aside hankering and fretting for the world.

[23:57]

The word ardent stands out for me. ardent with a quality of, it's a powerful evocative word. It conveys a sense of warmth, a kind of intensity. And it's, oh, I'd forgotten, I had some other notes here. It actually comes from the Greek. Glowing, flashing, fierce, burning. So it has a low quality of dry intensity, burning and a kind of fierceness in it.

[25:06]

So that quality of intensity is part of the mindfulness, the meaning of mindfulness. Now the four foundations then are body, feelings, mind as states of mind or mental formations. and then objects of mind. And I won't have time tonight to go into all this in detail, but I just want to mention in the body part that it begins with breath. So the first section talks about the awareness of breath in the body and simply being aware that when there's a long breath, that there's a long breath. When there's a short breath, there's a short breath.

[26:09]

Body also, the section on body also then moves into just being aware of the posture that you're in. The posture of sitting, the posture of standing, the posture of walking, the posture of lying down. And then the posture is in activity, just being aware of what you're doing in activity. So in that section, A practitioner of the way, when going forward or back, is clearly aware of what he is doing. In looking forward or back, she is clearly aware. Looking, she is clearly aware. In bending and stretching. In carrying his or her inner and outer robe and bowl. In eating, drinking, chewing, and savoring. He is clearly aware of what he is doing. In passing excrement or urine, he is clearly aware of what he is doing.

[27:17]

In walking, standing, sitting, falling asleep, and waking up. In speaking or in staying silent, one is clearly aware of what one is doing. So one abides, contemplating body as body, internally, externally, and both internally and externally. And one abides independent, not clinging, to anything in this world. And then it goes into reflection on all of the parts of the body, including all the repulsive fluids and things in the body, just to name them. And the idea is that if you name the different parts with this sense of equal value that I'm talking about, it's just like one of the images in the Satipatthana Sutta is It's just like if you're sorting beans from a bag of mixed. You sort out the pinto beans and the lima beans and say, oh, this is a red lentil and this is a green lentil and this is a kidney bean.

[28:26]

And that takes that kind of awareness to discern this kind of bean and that kind of bean. But you don't get overly excited about a pinto bean. You don't get overly excited about lima bean. You don't feel particularly repulsed by the red lentil. You don't feel particularly annoyed by the green lentil. You just notice red lentil, green lentil, pinto, lima, kidney, like that. So this is the quality of, say, dry intensity, dry fire. of mindfulness that's being recommended in the Satipatthana Sutta. In the body it also includes a section on understanding that the four elements, earth, air, fire, and water, are constituents of the body.

[29:29]

And that the body will eventually die and decay So there are what are called the charnel ground meditations that are included in that section where practitioners of this mindfulness practice were encouraged to actually go to the place where bodies, after someone had died and then they were just placed on on an area in an area where animals could come and vultures could come and to actually notice what the body was like after one day after death and three days after death and a week after death and a month after death. And so it's quite specific about the value of understanding that this body is temporary.

[30:34]

It's rare and wonderful. It has all these qualities. There's an important value in carefully attending to the body and at the same time realizing that it's impermanent. And the concluding insight then is one abides contemplating body as body internally contemplating body as body externally. One abides contemplating arising phenomena in the body, contemplating vanishing phenomena in the body. One abides contemplating both arising and vanishing phenomena in the body, mindful that there is body present just to the extent necessary for knowledge and awareness. One abides independent, not clinging to anything. That is how one abides contemplating body as body. So this may sound very boring.

[31:37]

And I'm just skipping over it and omitting all the repetitions. There's a lot of repetition because this was originally an oral transmission. People would teach each other this and repeat it over and over again. The next section is feelings. And in the Satipatthana Sutta, the discussion of feelings is much simpler than what you would ordinarily consider as feelings. The intention is to notice the simple experience of what is pleasant and what is unpleasant. And what is a sense experience that is neither pleasant nor unpleasant. So feeling means that you notice at the most basic level whether you are experiencing pleasure or pain or just a sensation without pleasure or pain, a neutral sensation.

[32:48]

So why is this important? The refinement of awareness, the refinement of awareness actually will eventually bring you to a concentrated, pretty concentrated state or maybe a very concentrated state in which you notice, if you are abiding in stillness, you notice the slightest inclination towards something, the slightest inclination away from something. If you're completely straight, up and down, upright and still, and you have a thought that you'd rather be over there, you may notice a slight shift, very slight shift.

[33:56]

Or if something pops up over there and scares you a little bit, and you feel, I'm not so sure about that, you may notice a slight shift away from it. So this is feeling in the sense of turning toward, which would be advert, adverting is turning toward, or advert, turning away. If you notice your slight tendency to turn toward or turn away from something, you become aware of how that The thinking mind picks up and creates a whole interpretation of that, builds on it, and creates a whole world in which you have decided that you don't want to be anywhere close to this, or you can't stand to be without it.

[34:58]

I must have, or I can't stand. People come up and they may say, I can't stand so-and-so. How did that happen? Most people, most of us don't know, usually, quite how that happened. How did we get to that place where we think, where we find ourselves saying, I can't stand so-and-so? And it's so deep in our cells or our body, right? Even one-celled organisms, move away from heat or light. Plants. Plants turn toward or away from. We say it's a tropism in botany and in biology, right? If you have a positive tropism towards sunlight, so the leaves of the plant grow towards the sun.

[36:02]

Roots may have a negative tropism to sunlight, they avoid the sun. A positive tropism to gravity and follow gravity down into the earth. The stem of the plant has a negative tropism in relation to gravity, moving away from the pull of gravity. So plants are doing this. Plants are turning towards and away all the time. And animals, of course, survive based upon turning toward or away. So this is very deep in the cells of our bodies. But often we don't know how we come to the decision that, oh, we like something or we don't. We don't know whether it's actually something that's hardwired into our body. We could say whether it's hardwired into our body or it's something that we've

[37:04]

developed an attitude by the stories that we tell ourselves. I remember as a landscape designer, one time I suggested a plant, Fatsia Japonica, to a particular client, and they didn't know what it was. I forget the common name. Does anyone know the common name for Fatsia Japonica? No. OK. It has big leaves, like big hands. And I showed this particular client the picture of this plant in the book. And then they remembered that plant. And I said, oh, I hate that plant. I hate that plant. I don't want it anywhere in my garden. And I thought, I had the impulse to try to convince them, you know, there's nothing wrong with this plant. It's beautiful, you know, evergreen, nice green leaves.

[38:09]

It'll do well in this environment. But I was more curious. I said, well, how? Why don't you like that plant? So we actually had to investigate a while. What could possibly be wrong with that plant that would have that reaction? And finally, after, you know, kind of sorting out previous experiences, this person remembered that they associated that plant with the lobby of a dentist's office. And when they saw that plant, they felt pain in their teeth. It was anticipating pain. So it really, it's very interesting, right? How we create these whole scenarios and we don't, in this case, Didn't know, you know, why do I hate that plant? It really had nothing to do with the plant itself.

[39:10]

It wasn't that the plant was the problem. It was that the plant had been associated with an early experience of pain. Are there any dentists here? I have great sympathy.

[39:29]

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