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 by people like you. To appreciate absolute value means Opening your heart, mind and seeing things as it is. So that's what I want to talk about today. It's good to be here. I'm wondering how many people are here for the first time. Raise your hands.

[01:00]

Yeah. Well, welcome. Welcome. You're the best, the best ones. How many of you have been here a few times? Say a few times. All right. How many people have been here many times? I think maybe you're about equal to the combination of the first time and several time people. And you're the best. Recently, I've been at Tassajara and you might think I'm playing hooky from practice period at Tassajara. Some of you know Ren Bunce, who we just installed as the head student for the practice.

[02:14]

Ren sends her regards to those who know her here. And I think maybe that's the main reason I'm here. It's always a challenge to give a Dharma talk because you all already have. So now I should keep.

[03:49]

Oh, now. OK, now I don't have to shout. So you can keep me posted if you can hear or not. If you can't hear, raise your hand. Any one and in accord. The kai means, say, to be in accord. It's like shaking hands. The image of shaking hands. The author, Shito Shichin, or Sekito, Japanese and say Sekito, selected this, I think, this title partly because it would relate to the Taoist previous poem or work by that title, which had to do with how do you become a Buddha?

[05:04]

Actually, when the Buddhism came to China, There was a language problem. Well, how to incorporate what is this whole idea of Buddha into Chinese culture? And so in the Taoist culture that was there, as I understand it, there was this notion of perfectibility, that you can actually perfect yourself in a way in which you could possibly, if you did everything correctly, become... One of the immortals actually become immortal. You can actually have a long life, endless long life. So there's a sense in which you could become a deity. So the translation of the word for Buddha became the highest of the immortals. So that's best. Say an implication that's carried by the title Sando Kain first.

[06:08]

The first lines of the poem say that the mind of the great sage of India is conveyed or transmitted intimately from west to east. People may be wise or foolish, or they may be, we could say, sharp or dull. But in the way, in the true way, there are no ancestors of north or south. Now, this whole business of ancestors from north or south is kind of interesting to me because this was the sixth Chinese ancestor of Zen, Zen's grandson. Dharma grandson who wrote this poem.

[07:08]

And he had very briefly studied with the sixth ancestor and the sixth ancestor. Very famous in Zen legend because he was supposedly illiterate. And he came to practice as a lay person. He was. an impoverished woodcutter who happened to hear someone reciting the Diamond Sutra. And when he heard the Diamond Sutra recited, his mind clarified and he understood enough of the Dharma teaching so that he was motivated to go and join other people who were practicing. And he went and he visited... Hung Gren, the fifth ancestor. And when he visited him, Hung Gren said, well, what are you here for?

[08:18]

And he said, I'm here to become a Buddha. And Hung Gren said, well, how can you become a Buddha? You're a southerner. You're nothing but a jungle rat. This is the story that the term jungle rat, I just found in Red Pines, a recent, recent translation. And so he really said some things that would dismiss this newcomer. But why knowing said, although we are different. Although you're from the north and I'm from the south, and I may look different in the Buddha Dharma, there really is no north or south.

[09:20]

So in the Buddha Dharma, there's no north-south. So this statement then was carried along and had put into this poem a couple of generations later. Now, earlier this week, I was at Green Gulch and we had a presentation on Wednesday night. Wilson Riles, Jr. and Patricia St. Ang gave a little presentation. And that was wonderful. Actually, the two of them were saying, well, we have these interesting conversations between us. And so we thought we would just share some of the things we've been talking about. One of the things they discussed was the theme of monoculture and diversity. So the notion that if we want everything to be the same and look the same, we lose a lot.

[10:36]

We lose a lot in terms of understanding actually who we are. At the beginning of this talk, I said the absolute value means opening the heart-mind and seeing things as it is. Now, things as it is is a phrase that Suzuki Roshi, I think, perhaps coined to suggest both things that includes uh, all the variety of the phenomenal world, the multiplicity, which is in the first character of the sound of time and the it things as it is that everything is actually also one, one thing, one totality. So one totality is one totality mean monoculture.

[11:42]

Wilson Riles and Patricia were saying that actually it is the diversity that makes the totality that makes the whole not. So if we're going in the direction of finding our comfort, say, our familiarity and everything looking the same, being the same, then we actually miss the reality. Of the oneness of things, which is carried in the very diversity of things. So we describe things as as different. In Buddhism, we say that each thing has its value in itself and that value is equal to anything else. So the people who are here for the first time, their first timeness is. The very value that you bring people who have been here many times.

[12:50]

You're many times attending Dharma talks and your continuous practice. Your continuous practice is the value that you bring. The value of being here the first time is the value of being here many times are equal. When we see the diversity that actually the difference. It is actually what makes things equal. So this is this, the third character, the Kai of the Sandokai. That things are actually shaking hands or that things actually are completely interconnected. Now, it may not be so easy to see the equal value. I know. Ed Brown, my, say, Dharma brother, Edward Brown, who you may know from writing the Tashara Bread book, whose film, actually, a film called How to Cook Your Life, I heard was just shown this last week at the Middle Valley Film Festival.

[14:06]

And some people may have seen it. We had a little showing of it a couple of months ago at the Green Gulch. Dad had a copy of the DVD himself. So he tells the story of when he was a Tenzo. He was the head cook at Tassahara. And as the head cook, he would go into Suzuki Roshi and ask for advice. And Suzuki Roshi would say, when you cook the rice, cook the rice. When you stir the soup, stir the soup. When you cut the carrots, cut the carrots. And he would go back again and again and he'd get the same message, right? Cook the rice, stir the soup. Bring mindfulness to what you were doing. Very direct. But but Edward noticed that although he was trying to do this, all the other people who are supposedly helping him in the kitchen were not.

[15:15]

They were not paying attention. Sometimes they were coming in late. Sometimes they would forget to be practicing silence and they would start talking. Sometimes they would be distracted right in the middle of cutting carrots and they wouldn't be consistent in cutting the carrots. And this really began to get on Ed's nerves. So he went to Suzuki Roshi and he said, I'm having a lot of trouble with these people. They don't take their practice to the kitchen. They don't just cut the carrots. They come in late. They leave early. They even insult me and don't listen to my directions. And he was, of course, expecting a very sympathetic response from Suzuki Roshi. Something like, OK, I know. Good help is hard to get.

[16:18]

It's hard to find people who really take this practice seriously or are bringing the same kind of diligence that you have to this kitchen practice. What Suzuki Roshi said, though, is that he said, I guess there was a pause. And then he said, you have to have a calm mind to see virtue in others. And Ed felt, well, that's not what I was talking about. But he did hear it. He heard it. And he's been reflecting on that ever since. So with our practice of Zazen, actually.

[17:19]

The practice of Zazen is the practice of calming the mind. But there's more than that. It's actually the practice of opening the heart. And it's amazing to me, actually, that this just happens. People who said Zazen. particularly pretty intensively for a while, begin to discover that they feel some connection. Maybe feel some connection with other people. Or feel some connection with the carrots they're cutting. Feel some connection with the rice that they're cooking. Even feel some connection with what is inside. As I was standing in the hallway today before... Going upstairs to change into these robes, someone asked me how I felt.

[18:23]

And I said, I said, I'm fighting a virus. But actually, I don't think I'm fighting a virus. I've learned to actually take the practice of seeing the virtue in others. into my own body. And so I see the virtue of the virus. By that, I mean that I see the virus as it is. And I don't mean objectively see it as it is, because that's really impossible. We really only know what we experience in our senses. In Buddhism, we say we have six senses with the usual five that you may think of that you learned in grade school, plus consciousness as a sixth sense. And that's really where all of our experience of what reality is comes.

[19:26]

And of course, we can with certain tools, we can magnify our senses with a telescope, magnifying glass microphone. We can amplify. But still, it's our five senses. It's a kind of hubris, actually, to think that that's the whole universe, that the universe can be completely described by the senses that we happen to have or the range that we happen to be aware of. We do know that there are other animals who can hear. Sounds at lower frequency or higher frequency than we can. We knew that there are waves of light that are ultraviolet or infrared that we can't actually see. So anyway, we have these senses. And so what I am saying with my virus is that I'm noticing my own experience with the virus.

[20:34]

And I'm taking care of the virus. I'm taking care of my own body in relation to the virus. And sometimes it gets way out of balance, right? Where I have to really stop and rest. Today, I'm saying maybe maybe I'm dialing back about 20 percent so that I'm resting now while I'm talking. Please forgive me for only being 80 percent active and talking and 20 percent resting. But I actually suggest that as the practice of inner listening. So that in Zazen, the practice of Zazen means to bring awareness to your whole field, your inner field and your surrounding environment.

[21:45]

surrounding environment, we need to take into account. If we don't, then we really mess things up. I should acknowledge that I received this email last night. Check my email. And I was surprised to have such a prompt message from Al Gore. It says, Dear Stephen. So I must have sent Al Gore some money or something at some time. And so it's a tribute actually to the level of organization of this work that he's doing. That on the same day that he's receiving this Nobel Peace Prize, this message goes out. So I'll just read it. I'm deeply honored to receive the Nobel Peace Prize. This award is even more meaningful because I have the honor of sharing it with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the world's preeminent scientific body devoted to improving our understanding of the climate crisis.

[22:57]

A group whose members have worked tirelessly and selflessly for many years. We face a true planetary emergency. The climate crisis is not a political issue. It is a moral. and spiritual challenge to all of humanity. It is also our greatest opportunity to lift the global consciousness to a higher level. My wife Tipper and I will donate 100% of the proceeds of the award to the Alliance for Climate Protection, a bipartisan nonprofit organization that's devoted to changing public opinion. in the US and around the world about the urgency of solving the climate crisis. Thank you, Al Gore. I was happy to see that this coming from the Nobel committee makes a connection between the environment and peace.

[24:01]

We should, in our Zen practice, particularly in our lineage of Soto Zen. Be aware of the connection between, say, how we treat things, how we treat things, and what is a harmonious relationship, peace. So the Sando Kai says, Many things, oneness, being in accord. How are many things and oneness in accord? Each thing that we meet, actually, as soon as you see that it is a thing, you also take into account that by that act of seeing it as a thing, you have created a.

[25:07]

A partial understanding. The partial understanding is that the more you see it as a thing, the more you sense yourself as a thing separate. And the danger is then that you begin to think that, oh, what happens to that thing is not me. So what happens? to the plastic bag that I pick up and throw in the trash is not me. So for many generations, we've had this kind of individualistic cultural practice of thinking that we are actually separate from the totality. And that is what Al Gore in his statement here is calling, A crisis that is moral and spiritual.

[26:10]

So spiritual recognition is to understand that the totality of being is actually beyond what we can say, what we can exactly perceive or conceive of. And yet we mutually interact and we have effect on each other. So this is in our relationship with each other as human beings. as well as in our relationship with plants, trees, rocks, water, the air. When Wilson Riles, I'm going back and forth with a few threads here. And when Wilson Riles and Patricia, now we're talking about diversity. Patricia said both of them actually have. genetic connection to indigenous people. She herself is, which is what we'd call Iroquois or from the six nations that actually formed the federation, which part of the U.S.

[27:27]

Constitution was based on. And Wilson Riles himself was his Afro-American and Blackfoot. And they looked around the group at Green Gulch and said, and she said, well, this is a white crowd. I can look around the room and say this is a white crowd. But I know that if I actually explore beneath that surface, there is diversity here. There are actually many different genetic groups represented, many different cultural understandings, many different beliefs. that people are holding. So there is there is, if we look more closely, diversity. So how is it that we can recognize that diversity, that difference is what connects us?

[28:33]

Actually, it's like the the image. This image of Sandokai, this image of many and one and in accord is like the image of, say, waves on an ocean. That there is this huge body of water and a wave comes up. And for the time this wave comes up, you could say at the peak of the wave, there's this experience of individual consciousness. Or this wave can actually, at the tip of the wave, can actually look over and see another wave and say, hi. The tip of the wave may look at another wave and identify with that other wave. The tip of that wave saying, oh, you have something in common with me. and set about, identifying with the characteristics of being at the tip of that wave.

[29:38]

Maybe even just one drop, right? One little bit of sea foam, recognizing, oh, we're the same, but failing to see that they're both part of the same ocean. So this sundo guy is calling into, our awareness that actually we are all connected, part of the same motion. And it's actually the difference where we can actually see each other as the same or a little bit different. Oh, I see you are the same, except you're over there and I'm over here. Or I see you and you are the same, except you're all here. You have hair and I don't. I have a I have a three year old, almost four year old granddaughter. And at her school, she lives in New York.

[30:43]

I don't get to see her enough, but I talked to my ex wife's daughter, who is also my daughter and my granddaughter's mother. I mentioned ex wife because my ex wife is a Syrian Lebanese background. And so. And I'm from Swiss, Swiss German Mennonite background. And so our daughter Hannah combines those. And then my granddaughter's father was Mexicano, Mexican or is Mexican. So at school, they had this little project where they were looking at various colors. And identifying their own skin color with the colors that were there. And they gave the colors names. Very creatively, I thought.

[31:47]

So my granddaughter came up with picking out two colors that were her colors. And one was cinnamon. And the other was caramel. So I have a cinnamon granddaughter with caramel hands. The kids have picked up peach or chocolate. So I think it's this practice then of stopping and allowing us to actually experience what we're experiencing. We begin to notice that each thing is as it is. And as it is, it has its own beauty. That beauty, as we could say, is its own virtue.

[32:49]

So when Suzuki Roshi is saying calm, it takes a calm mind to see the virtue in others, to see the virtue, to see the beauty in someone who shows up late. Now, the showing up late may cause some irritation, kind of stiffening in you, which means then you're not just seeing their beauty. You're seeing them with this veneer of judgment that you put on them. So when Hway Nung went and said to his master, the fifth ancestor, that actually were the same, even though you look different. You're Northern and I'm Southern. You wear different clothes. You speak a different dialect. Still, fundamentally, we are the same fundamental nature.

[33:53]

When he reminded him of that, he was pointing out that From the point of view of our own Buddha nature, we take into account everything. We take into account our own tendency to judge. Oh, if someone shows up late, our tendency to judge them as late is something that we take into account. It doesn't mean that we pretend they're not late. It just means that we take that into account. And we notice that our whole wide mind, can see them in relation to the totality of everything and see who they are as this beautiful, virtuous, absolute, perfect expression of the totality of things. Then when we say, oh, you're late, it's a different message.

[35:03]

because we're not diminishing them. But if we carry in ourselves the, say, a kind of rigidity or a kind of a judgment and let that color our experience, then we miss seeing the person, right? What we're seeing is our own attitude, judgment. So part of what you notice as you do this practice of zazen, practice of sitting is the different aspects from your own karmic habits that come up and bring that kind of distortion into the picture. So when we want to say, well, I want to be like Buddha, I want to be completely awake, you may think, oh, that means getting rid of judgment. But if you get into if you're trying to get rid of. judgment, then you're actually getting in an argument with judgment.

[36:07]

You're actually not seeing judgment as perfect. Not seeing judgment as having its own virtue, as having its absolute value. So that's an opportunity then to step back and say, oh. Now I recognize and completely accept and see judgment. This is part of the picture. Just as I step back and say, oh, there's a virus. That's part of the picture. So I include that and take care of it too. So this is expanding this experience of being open hearted. No matter what it is, we take it into account. So now, We have to take into account that the cars that we drive are affecting the climate. We have to take that into account.

[37:11]

If we don't take it into account, we're less than our own true nature. Because our true nature is the mind that actually is aware of everything we can possibly be aware of. Now that we know, now that it's been called to our attention, we may not like it. That not liking it also then is something that we include. Take that into account. I have this tendency to not like it. We have this tendency to be impatient with people who don't agree. that I have an opportunity here to talk long or talk less.

[38:24]

So what I really want you to pay attention to is your own capacity, your own true Buddha nature. Your own capacity to be awake with everything that you are actually aware of. To recognize the fact and not say recoil and not exaggerate. We say, don't chase after your desires. Don't get involved in holding on to your negative reactions or your aversion to things, your irritation with things.

[39:32]

So I found with working with my own virus that I actually am healthier if I don't get too involved and too annoyed, too irritated. But actually just try to see exactly how it's affecting me and then do what's needed. Get a little more rest. Drink a little more tea. Take a wellness formula. And it's a kind of a dance, actually, a kind of a play. Sometimes I might have to lie down. But I don't know actually from moment to moment what's the best. So if you're tuning into your actual experience like that, then you have a more, say, soft mind, a more fluid experience. When you meet somebody, you may notice that you already have a relationship with this person and it's really good and you're really happy to see them.

[40:45]

You include that. Or you may notice that you have a good relationship with this person, but there's something that came up last week when you talked with them that bugged you. So how do you take that into account? Do you pretend that that's not there? Or do you, in the service of actually having a relationship, say, you know, there's something there's something that you said that. bug me and I want to find a way to talk about it. I want to find a way to clear that up in our relationship. So that's finding a way to take it into account. And it's recognizing that the experience is your own experience. If what's bugging you is simply acknowledged as your own experience, okay, there's this feeling, this feeling of tension.

[41:57]

And I know exactly what it is. I know it is associated with the word that they said or the way they dismiss something that I said or that this person turned away. And now I feel like I've been. They turned away. Now I feel like I've been rejected. Now, if I go back to that person and say, you rejected me, that's an exaggeration. That's not exactly what happened. What happened is that I felt rejected. What they did is they turned away. They may have had a thousand different reasons to turn away. not just rejecting me. So in our communication about our experience, if we want to be more like our true nature, more like our own Buddha possibility, we take into account the fact that I would take into account the fact that I have a tendency to make a judgment there.

[43:12]

I have a tendency to. feel rejected when someone turns away. So when I talk to them about it, I have to acknowledge how I contribute to this feeling. They may not have felt it at all, this feeling of some separation between us. I'm recognizing then that their value is, their virtue is intact. And I can't see it. I know that I can't see it unless I have some calmness of mind. So it's my responsibility in this practice to cultivate calmness of mind. Calmness and clarity of mind.

[44:14]

And with that calmness and clarity of mind, then it's actually a wholesome practice for me to come up and say, hey, there's something for us to talk about. So I'm I'm pretty fortunate these days in having lots of opportunities. To talk to people, mostly people that I have some connection with, that's recognized by both of us. But sometimes to talk with people with whom we have no previous connection, like the people who were here today, you were here for the first time, right? So I'm fortunate to have this chance to talk to you a little bit, and if you want to, we have a little Time in the dining room after this to have some dialogue.

[45:19]

And all the time I'm working with my own tendencies, my own tendency to ignore something, to not want to be bothered by something. My impatience. My own human wish to be comfortable rather than uncomfortable. But I know that all those things that come up like that interfere with my ability to accurately see that the person in front of me who may be a jungle, you know, a jungle rat. It was completely beautiful, completely beautiful jungle rat. And I know that from both sides because when I first came here to Zen Center, I came to the door.

[46:26]

I'd hitchhiked across the country. I probably hadn't had a bath in a week or so. I came to the door and someone answered the door and they looked at me. They were pretty suspicious. So when I hear that this person showed up and they were like a jungle. Yeah, I can. I was that jungle rat. I was that jungle rat. I showed up here. I had long hair. Matted. And and I said something like what the. But when I said, you know, I want to be a Buddha. And I said, the person answered the door, I want to practice Zen. I said, well, usually people make some arrangements. And I said, oh, OK, well, I didn't.

[47:36]

I didn't make any arrangements. I just came here. I just heard about San Francisco Zen Center and I showed up. And they said, well, just a minute. Close the door. So I had a brief Tangario. And there's this tradition of Tangario where you sit outside the temple for maybe days. I only had about a five minute Tangario. And and then someone else opened the door. And this person was the the Sheikah, the person who takes care of guests. And she said, well, okay, come in and we'll talk a little bit. So we sat here in the lobby and we talked a little bit. And she told me that I could be a guest student. So I came and I was a guest student for a few days.

[48:37]

And then there was a session that started in a couple of days. And I said, I want to sit the session. I said, well, no, you can't. First, you have to sit a one day session before you have one day sitting before you can do a seven day session. I said, well, how about if I sit the first day and then? So they were actually flexible enough to let me sit the first day and then the next day and the next day. So. So I stuck around and all this time, whether I've been here at the city or Green Gulch or Tassajara or out spending years raising a family and trying to integrate Zen practice with running a business and other things.

[49:40]

I found this practice. is the best way to recognize absolute value that each thing, each person, every molecule actually has its own virtue. And to see that means that I need to open my own heart and mind. And with that opening a heart and mind, then I have a chance to see Things not separate from what is. So things as it is. So thank you. Thank you for listening. And please continue to explore your own your own true nature. For more information, visit sfcc.org and click Giving.

[51:04]

May we fully enjoy the Dharma.

[51:07]

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