I guess it's nice to be here. It was nicer to be here before I found myself on this seat, but it's still pretty nice. to be here at Tassajara. My name is Chiryu. I live currently at Green Gulch Farm, Green Dragon Temple, one of the other temples associated with San Francisco Zen Center. And though I lived here for many years in the past, I don't make it here that often, once or twice a year. And it's always really special. So thank you all for maintaining this And so coming in this year, I noted the condition of the road, which was good.

[01:13]

So for those of you new, it does are that condition. It's called good. That is a very good condition. Road. And I was driving in, had the chance to drive in. and myself this year with my family, my wife Sarah, and my sons Frank and Dusty, who also live at Greenwich Farm. And I was driving this narrow, treacherous path with this, you know, inconceivably precious cargo. And I remembered this image from the teaching of our great ancestor Nagarjuna. Nagarjuna has a special place in our hearts as Zen students. He's one of the ancestors whose name we chant most mornings.

[02:19]

Thanking him for teaching us, for pointing out to us that everything we think and everything we say doesn't actually get at much it doesn't get at it at least any thought we have is a word you know any word we say is a kind of box around something a word refers to something and as soon as we refer to something we're like pulling it out of relationship from everything else so how could it possibly be correct it's already wrong As soon as we've said a word, we've separated. We've drawn a little box around something that can't be boxed. So he taught us to be free of our views and our words and our thoughts and to be free of freedom from views and thoughts, to not make a new nest over there in, I don't believe, words.

[03:35]

More words to believe. So anyway, this is a dear and precious ancestor from the second century. Almost 2,000 years teaching this wisdom. But anyway, this image came to mind. He has this image of a traveler traversing these steep mountain paths. And so, of course, I think of the steep paths, you know, the steep slopes around here. And he says, you know, maybe you're on these treacherous paths using suspended ropes trying to traverse this distance in this narrow, steep path. Or maybe you're riding on a mountain boat. Many years ago here at Tassajara, my wife and I We've rescued a goat.

[04:39]

I'm not sure the goat sees it that way. But we were up on the top of the road and there was this floppy-eared mama goat and a floppy-eared baby goat. And we had some granola and they wanted it. They were maybe lost from one of these crews, you know, that clears the hillsides. So I have this image of a mountain goat, which is a floppy-eared goat. Tassahara Road goat, but I'm not sure that's the mountain goat that Nagarjuna has in mind, but somehow goats and mountains, floppy-eared mountain goat is sort of burned in my mind coming across this image of Nagarjuna talking about steep trails on a goat. So imagine you're riding on one of these steep trails on this floppy-eared mountain goat. This is our practice. This is what I want to invite you to consider as we practice whatever it is that we practice.

[05:44]

Whatever your practice is, whatever the way is that you've discovered, that's how you truly want to live your deepest aspiration and intention, your call. To think of that as... something that's undertaken like a person on a mountain goat climbing a steep and treacherous path so Nagarjuna says on all such bad pathways as these it is on account of being single minded and non negligent that one succeeds. You know, on a wide sort of flat road, you're okay, you know.

[06:50]

You're pretty much okay. Your mind can wander. Your attention can flag. On this mountain goat, on this treacherous path, There's naturally a lot of concentration and single-mindedness, clarity of purpose. Because we know that it matters. So when we're on a narrow path, we don't need somebody to tell us, hey, you should be careful. And we don't even tell ourselves, yeah, I really should be careful. We just look down and be careful. We see that it matters. And so naturally we have the energy. and the integrity and intention. The situation itself brings about the energy, brings about the non-negligence and single-mindedness. Do you know what I mean? The extent to which we're connected with how important it matters, how high the stakes are in something that we're doing, being connected to how high the stakes are, naturally the energy is there.

[08:12]

Our full discernment and wisdom and integrity and carefulness is there when we're aware of the stakes. So it's occurred to me in the study of my own life, the study of my own Buddhist practice that I doubt regularly, if not constantly, I doubt how consequential my practice is. I doubt the stakes of my practice. And then I wonder why there's not more energy in my practice. And I think this is true of many of us in our spiritual life or in the cultivation of our virtues and harmonious qualities, our efforts to really mature as human beings.

[09:16]

This isn't a project, this isn't a path that's fundamentally consequential to me and you and the world. but it's a kind of extra, it's an extra, or it's a hobby, or it's, you know, when I'm not too overwhelmed and I have some spare time, then I try to harmonize with all beings and cultivate the virtues of a bodhisattva. It's not really a life or death situation. It's kind of like wandering on a road rather than like, oh my God. I'm on a goat and there's a precipice. The safety and welfare and liberation of beings is not usually at the top of my mind. And then it's hard to sustain and hard to stay with. So what I've been inquiring into is what would it be to realize and uncover and more deeply believe and notice what actually these efforts in practice are

[10:22]

are deeply consequential. We have these teachings, you know, that our efforts and practice are way more consequential than we know or maybe could even imagine. And I've noticed in this when I can touch that it matters what I do, that it matters how I live in a deep way, in a direct way, then I don't need to manufacture energy. to do that practice. The energy is right there because I see that it matters. Give me some examples. Take generosity. Being generous. Most of us probably agree that that would be a good idea. It's kind of a good idea to be generous. But we aren't generally in touch with generosity as this extremely high stakes endeavor. that is urgently, vitally important that I be generous moment after moment.

[11:29]

So again, when we're feeling good and taken care of, then we do something generous and feel good about it. Say, well, I'm not so overwhelmed right now. I have some spare time, so I'll be generous. Yay. I hope. I did this extra, like, extra thing of generosity. But what if we actually understood the stakes in our moment-by-moment generosity and stinginess? What if we really saw how much depended on our generosity in this moment? Like, you know, say here at the Tassajara, Zendo, listening to like a so-so Dharma talk. It might seem, it may seem that, you know, it really doesn't matter so much our quality of awareness, our quality of attention right now.

[12:39]

It's kind of like, it would be nice, you know, if everything was together, if the conditions were there and then I had the extra energy to be really present for Dharma talk, that would be great. But it's kind of extra, you know. It's not... Our life doesn't depend on it. We're not having this feeling like, I better listen fully, totally. I better be in this room totally, as though I were on this goat, on this path, you know, seeing how much it matters. That if I don't, if I'm not present, there's a deep fall into this precipice for myself and others. And if I can be here fully, there's this great benefit, you know, these high stakes... We can sometimes see in others that a person is maybe confused or in denial about the impact of their own stinginess or generosity. Because we mostly rely on our own, we say in Zen, our eye of practice.

[13:44]

So we see as far as our eye of practice can see. So we look around and see, well, it doesn't matter too much if I'm generous. Maybe somebody's a little happier than they would be if I wasn't. And if I'm stingy, maybe somebody's a little impacted, you know. But from my perspective, it doesn't seem to make that much of a difference if I'm generous or stingy on any given day with any given moment, you know, of attention or of potential gift. So we see the cause and effect in these little ways from our own perspective, and we think that that exhausts it. But sometimes if we can look at another person and see, well, that person does not see the impact of their stinginess. Well, that person does not see the great impact of their generosity. But it is true. It has great impact either way. I often think that what separates

[14:51]

A child, say, or an adolescent from an adult is this, the depth to which we understand that what we do matters, you know, that there are effects of our actions that extend more than our immediate circle of experience, you know. For instance, I'm not hungry, so I shouldn't have to eat dinner, says my nine-year-old. From his perspective, that exhausts the cause-and-effect situation. But from my eye of practice, I see it's actually much more consequential than that to many beings, whether or not he has dinner. So we... We trust in this practice, we cultivate this faith, this understanding that the cause, the effects of our actions, the effects of our practice always extend farther than we know or see.

[16:00]

This is kind of like being an adult. We understand that I'm not sure how this is going to ripple out, but I know that it will beyond what I know. So my feeling, my experience is that if I can connect with how important generosity truly is, then there's energy for generosity. Right, it matters. Opening to how deeply, how inconceivably this simple act of generosity might act on some other being. or the grievous harm that some simple stinginess could cause. And I see that I'm actually not on this wide path, but I'm on this narrow, treacherous slope.

[17:06]

And so we could also consider our moral practice, our precept practice. Our practice of ethics, you know, especially with respect to restraining from harmful behaviors. Do we feel that we're on a high-stakes path? We can see around us in the world that there are high stakes in neglecting ethical restraint of killing. High stakes. Killing has high stakes. and stealing and lying and misusing sexuality have high stakes moment by moment in our life are we in direct contact with how high the stakes are in our ethical observance do we realize how much it matters that we tend to this to the extent that we aren't deeply engaged and you see this again and again

[18:10]

in meeting people who are engaging with their ethical life. When we're not so engaged, we tend to think we're, you know, pretty ethical. We're doing okay, you know, ethically speaking. And then people start to study the precepts, start to look at our actual ethical discipline or moral cultivation and don't feel that we're doing okay, necessarily. Yeah. I had, you know, pretty good ethics until I really studied myself. And then it got quite a bit worse. So, you know, we're not really killing or lying much. Or anyway, we're not really killing and lying and stealing in any sort of consequential way. So sometimes we'll make a little extra effort and, you know, refrain from some kind of harm.

[19:10]

And that's like our ethical conduct through the day, you know. So many of us imagine that we're on this wide, flat road of ethics. We don't want to fall off course. We understand, you know, yeah, killing, definitely don't want to fall off of the road here. But it's a pretty wide road. There's maybe some people, like people who really kill, who are much closer to the edge, you know, so they kind of have to worry. But we're mostly on it. We more or less good people, you know, in a way, are at a disadvantage because we don't see the stakes necessarily of our action. So when you're riding on this goat on a path up these hills here, you don't have the feeling like, yeah, basically I've got this. That's not a thought that occurs to someone in that situation.

[20:12]

There's an active, engaged, curious mind. Every step. What now? What now? What now? The whole body and mind and being is fully engaged. It's not... I've got this. So can we see, in our ethical practice, can we see that we are teetering, you know? That the stakes, moment by moment, are high. One of our practices is the ability to meet suffering without blaming others or running away. Father, it's a practice of patience. So is patience, is being with our suffering without blaming or running away, is that something we can do, a nice thing to do and we can swing it, you know? Or is this something vitally important? It would be nice if I could meet this suffering without blame or running away.

[21:21]

But, you know, if I feel a tantrum, I can always apologize later. It's not that big a deal. So how can I see... that actually my capacity, our capacity to meet suffering, to be with suffering, with an open mind and a soft heart, is vital. The benefits of doing this are unknowable, unknowably deep. And the costs, the consequences of not doing this, of running away from our suffering, of indulging in blame and anger, are higher than we know. So that's the difference between a Buddha and us. A Buddha sees how consequential it is. And we, like the child, are still, I mean, I could run away a little bit. I could blow him a little bit. It's not that big a deal to blame someone else for my suffering. Often people ask me for advice in meditation because meditation is part of our practice here as Zen Buddhists.

[22:42]

And when people ask for advice or guidance in meditation, the first question that comes to mind is, well, does it matter to you that you meditate? Does it matter? How much does it matter? Can you look at how it matters in your life? And if you notice that it matters... then the energy to do it will be there. So this is true in general as we think about our life and what the role of meditation and concentration. If we feel the stakes of my swimming or not, for myself and for those around me, quite grove actually, then the energy to sit, the energy to meditate will be there. And then when we sit down on any given day and face the wall or whatever we face in meditation, do we have a feeling like this is consequential?

[23:47]

This matters. Do we feel that precariousness, that intensity of the danger actually? And the opportunity, the great danger and great opportunity of this one period of sitting. It's really easy to lose this feeling, especially those of us in the Zen temple who live here and start to feel that other people are telling us to meditate. We forget that we ask them to please tell us to meditate because we so much wanted to meditate that we found some people and said, okay, please tell me to meditate every day. And then they tell us to meditate and we say, why should I meditate? Why are you telling me? So there's even a little bit of the urgency in ourself of how much it matters to me that I sit. And then any given period, can I feel that? There is a whole lot at stake in the mind I'm bringing to this moment. You know, it doesn't matter how I walk. It doesn't matter how you walk.

[24:51]

Come on, you know. This is the ordinary. This is essentially being a deluded person like myself. like many of us, it doesn't really matter how we walk. It doesn't really matter how we drink the tea, you know? It'd be nice to drink the tea, you know, beautifully, or to walk mindfully, but it doesn't really matter. So can we question that? Can we look into, can we open to this teaching that actually matters inconceivably more than we know? And then with respect to our view, our view of the world and ourselves. The practice of wisdom, which is the practice of inquiring into and questioning and challenging and uprooting our views about who we are and what the world is.

[25:52]

Do we feel the urgent importance in questioning the habitual ways of seeing the world that we're operating under? I'm mostly seeing myself over here and you over there. And one of these days I'm going to get around to studying the teaching that indicates that that's not so. But... You know, it's not causing too much harm, this view I have. The teaching is this view that we have of me over here and me over there is actually causing a whole lot of harm. We just don't see it. Well, we sometimes glimpse it and then we say, wow, I've got to get serious about this habitual view thing I have of separation. And can we see that it matters, this view that I'm carrying around. really is consequential and the opportunity the benefit of studying that of overturning that is really important and I feel that actually my view is doing harm I'm harming with my view you know that's like getting ourselves how do we get ourselves off of this wide road

[27:28]

where we kind of have a lot of leeway onto seeing ourselves onto this path that we're actually on, on this sort of flimsy goat, you know, that we're riding, and see that there's harm right next to us, you know, every moment. And there's awakening and liberation and mutual support right next to us every moment in how we think and how we act and what we say. what we do, our generosity and our patience and wisdom and our concentration, our sitting practice. So I'm not sure how we touch this, how we cultivate this, how we really contact this meaningfulness, this at-stakeness, this treacherous aspect of our path.

[28:29]

And I can't do it with my words, you know. But there's these pointers in the tradition. So I want to encourage you to find the way to see in your own action moment after moment, that there's great consequence. This is energy. This is the practice of wholeheartedly engaging with our life. And if we don't think there's much at stake, we're not going to do that. I want to thank you sincerely for your patience this evening. And I want to note a couple of things in closing.

[29:34]

One is which may sound like there's a lot of shoulds in this suggestion. And in a way, what I'm claiming to, what I'm trying to illustrate is totally the opposite of should. There's no should in this situation of being on this treacherous path. It's not about what you should do. It's about what you want to do deeply because you see why it matters I also want to point out that once we see that it matters we relax and the energy of knowing that it matters carries us this isn't just like I should do more you know just a bunch more things to the list of things we should be doing better from our own energy we just touch that it matters and then relax and let that energy of it mattering do the work of our practice.

[30:36]

Well, my friends, a long line of goats, one following the other up the steep path When we slip, you know, we might not feel that we slip, but we're hurting. Why am I hurting? Because we slipped. And why are you thriving? Oh, because we didn't slip. It's not an accident that we're suffering and it's not an accident that we're liberated. any scant merit that comes with our gathering this evening, we wholeheartedly offer to the liberation of all beings.

[31:42]

May all beings fulfill their vows. 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, visit sfzc.org and click Giving.

[32:18]

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