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 from people like you. Hello, everyone. I'd like to thank the Tonto for inviting me to give this talk. He's off gallivanting with his wife in the city right now. And I'd like to thank my teacher, Agent Linda Ruth Cutts, for all of her support and guidance. And thank you to all of you for coming, sitting in this stuffy room for a little while. For those of you who don't know me, my name is Lauren, and I'm the guest manager at Tassajara right now. And I'll just say a little bit about myself to give you some context of what it is I'm doing sitting in this seat giving this talk.

[01:02]

I first moved to Green Gulch Farm, which along with Tassajara and City Center is one of the three temples that make up San Francisco Zen Center. In 2003, I was just out of college and I was interested in living in community. working on organic farms. I had been doing that for a while, but wanted to continue, and I wanted to move from an academic study of Buddhism to a life of practice. And since that time, I've mostly lived here and at Green Gulch. I lived at City Center for a year as well, and there were a few years sprinkled here and there of traveling, working on different farms, and visiting Dharma centers around the world. And during my time at Zen Center, I've held a lot of different positions, as is customary here. And last fall, I was invited to be the Shusou, or head student, which is kind of a rite of passage type position.

[02:11]

It involves giving a lot of Dharma talks and supporting the students in the practice period in various ways. this big ceremony at the end where you answer a lot of questions in this rapid-fire craziness. And it's sort of moving into more of a teaching role position. And after a person has benched you, so there's a six-month reprieve. And then after that six months, they're often invited to be a practice leader. which means, once again, giving Dharma talks, as you can see, and also offering practice discussion or one-on-one discussion with other students. And also, something you can do after that six months is co-lead retreats here at Tassajara. And in late June, I did that. I co-led a yoga and Zen retreat with Christy Brown. And until that time, I had only ever given Dharma talks

[03:13]

to other residents and students during practice period, so I wasn't really sure what to talk about with the yoga and Zen retreatants. What were they interested in? How much exposure had they had to Buddhism? Were they even interested in Buddhism, or did they just come here for the yoga and the baths and the food? How could I best talk about the Dharma with them in an accessible way in a 20-minute talk? And in the end, I focused on a few fundamental teachings and tried to express myself in language that was not too specialized. And it was a really gratifying experience for me because some people came up to me after and said, oh, I could really understand what you were talking about. I've come to these things before, and I didn't really understand the Zen part. And so since that time, I've been reflecting on what I'm calling accessibility and integrity. and the relationship between the two. Another way of saying this is, how can we be a part of a tradition where anyone who wishes to can recognize and relate to the teachings as applicable to their lives, find some universal truth, some helpfulness,

[04:32]

some glimpse into their true nature regardless of the particularities of their individual circumstances, the culture they come from, etc. How can we create that kind of universal space while maintaining a very specific tradition with specific forms and ceremonies and what I'm calling appearances? So this is what I want to talk about tonight or try to talk about tonight. And in my mind, I've been loosely associating accessibility with emptiness and universality and naturalness on the one hand. And I've been associating integrity with forms and appearances and and constructiveness or human-made creation on the other. So I'm not equating those things with each other, but I've been thinking about them in relationship with each other.

[05:35]

In this tradition, another way we talk about this is we talk about the relationship between relative reality and ultimate reality, or between form and emptiness. And I just want to say a little bit about emptiness because I think it often has negative connotations for people, that word. And I think it's sometimes misinterpreted as non-existence or some kind of nihilistic, nothing matters philosophy. The word emptiness comes from the Sanskrit word sunyata, and sunya is a hollowed out gourd. So we are each empty of a separate, inherent, permanent self. We only exist as impermanent beings, interdependently co-arising with all phenomena. Another word for emptiness that some people prefer is boundlessness. So we are empty of own being or some permanent fixed self, which means we are full of the entire universe.

[06:42]

Everything is supporting us and creating us. And the Buddha taught that the only way that emptiness or boundless exists interconnectedness can be understood and realized is through form. I'm interested in how the specific forms and appearances of this particular tradition, the Soto Zen tradition, as passed down by Suzuki Roshi, can be for some people enticing, for some people off-putting, for some people just plain distracting. I think especially often for those of us who are new, these forms. When I first moved to Green Gulch Farm, I was 22 years old and I had wide-ranging interests. I was in no way convinced that Zen was the tradition for me. I did not like the color black. I loved and still do love music. I found the chanting to be ridiculously low-pitched.

[07:46]

and I didn't always understand or relate to the language that was being used. But what I did know was that I was tired of studying Buddhism in an academic setting, and that I didn't want to learn about Buddhism from a distance. I wanted to experience it. I wanted to practice. In my college courses on Buddhism, there was a lot of emphasis on historical accuracy and objectivity, And sometimes it felt like we never got to the point. So even though I felt unsure about the specificities, appearances, and forms of gen, I remember moments during that first summer when I exchanged a look with a teacher, or I remember Tension Rep. Anderson asking us repeatedly throughout the summer, what is your deepest intention? Or when I just experienced some powerful feeling during zazen or service, And I think those moments were enough to let me know that there was something in this tradition that was meaningful for me, whether or not I could put it into words, something that I was drawn to, something that was being expressed within all those forms and traditions that I wasn't so sure about, but was ultimately beyond those forms and appearances.

[09:05]

I think many of us, especially Westerners, feel a kind of self-consciousness when we begin practicing Zen, like we're trying to do something contrived and strange and special. We may feel like we're appropriating Japanese culture, and that's because we are, but we're also inevitably changing it and adding our own unique contribution to this ever-evolving tradition. And I think over time, the longer we live this way, for those of us who... practice, the more we grow used to the forms and appearances of Zen. We forget what we look like to someone on the street who is not immersed in Zen practice. And we feel more and more how this life is nothing special, as Suzuki Roshi used to say. For me, following forms and a schedule with a community of fellow practitioners creates a feeling of harmony and peace and that allows me to go more deeply into my practice in a way that I cannot do alone.

[10:10]

And I think if we notice that we're attracted or repulsed by some form, that's an opportunity to let go. Either way, whether our small self likes them or not, the meaning is not in the forms. The forms are a vehicle or a skillful means to point to something beyond form. And ironically, forms create a space for us to be completely ourselves. When we're all doing the same thing, our true nature can come forth. Suzuki Roshi once said, you have to continue until you find your true nature in your practice. That is realization of the truth. At first, it looks like you're trying to do something. But when you understand the purpose of practice, you will understand that was my nature and I didn't know. Over time, instead of feeling self-conscious about the forms, we allow the forms to happen. We allow the forms to reveal things about ourselves to ourselves.

[11:16]

And we find our true nature through these particular manifestations. And it's through forms and through our immersion in this relative culturally specific life that we go beyond form and beyond self-clinging. During guest season at Tassajara, some students may begin to feel like our practice is watered down, that the forms are getting kind of loose. People are wearing colorful t-shirts in the Zendo. There's bocce tournaments happening, lounging by the pool. Is this really Zen practice? And there's also a lot of emphasis on work, getting things done, and all the busyness and activity that are part of taking care of our guests. In a sense, guest season is a more challenging arena for practice than practice period. How can we find the integrity of our practice when there is less formal support and less time for zazen?

[12:22]

I think the first step is letting go of any fixed ideas we may have about our practice, especially the idea that our practice is about us. If we don't create a welcoming, accessible environment, If we make people feel that they need to look and act in one particular way in order to practice, then we are furthering suffering instead of relieving it. We are cutting others off from accessing the teachings that bring peace. For me, guest season is a wonderful opportunity to practice generosity and awaken big mind. We can awaken big mind by attending to the conventional realities of our world and our duties, of filling a guest's water glass or chopping an onion with some sense, some awareness of the totality that's happening, of the truth beyond the form in front of us. And the same way that we just show up for the form of zazen, we can just show up for guest season.

[13:26]

It's just another form to not be attached to or run away from, allowing reality to come forth and experience itself. Sazen is a central practice or form in our Soto Zen tradition. Some would say the central practice. So I want to talk about it in the context of this relationship between accessibility and integrity. Sitting is an activity that at first glance seems very accessible and natural. Sitting is something that a person can do anywhere for free in a variety of different postures. And seated meditation is central to our family story, our mythology, because Shakyamuni Buddha is said to have been sitting cross-legged under a bodhi tree when he experienced enlightenment.

[14:33]

But when we talk about zazen, we're not just talking about the physical posture or asana of sitting in meditation, but about a state of mind that is spacious and open, that doesn't believe or act on each thought, we can bring zazen mind to all our activities and to whatever physical posture we're in. Zazen is actually happening all the time everywhere, and we enact the ceremony of zazen within particular limits of time and space, within particular forms, to celebrate the limitless, all-pervasive reality of zazen. Yet over time, many schools of Buddhism believed, and some still do believe, that a person needs to be enlightened in order to meditate. In most popular Buddhist traditions, lay people do not meditate, while chanting and devotional practices are more common.

[15:38]

And in part because of this belief that only certain people can or should meditate, that meditation is an advanced practice, Shen Hui, the Dharma descendant of Hui Nung, allegedly said, meditation is useless unless you have some realization first. And I recently heard a Buddhist scholar from UC Berkeley say that meditation can serve a deep narcissism. Many people feel that meditation is dangerous if not practiced properly or skillfully. And while this might be true, in some cases, the teaching that was passed down to us from Suzuki Roshi is that Awakening is a completely natural, everyday activity, that our practice of zazen is nothing special, and that no preparatory stages are needed. In this sense, I think our tradition emphasizes what I am calling an accessible slash universal slash natural approach to zazen.

[16:43]

I want to say a little bit more about this word natural because it's a pretty loaded word for me. I majored in environmental studies with a concentration of Eastern religion, and almost all of my environmental studies classes began with our professor saying, what is nature? To the point where it became kind of a joke with my friends and I. We all have ideas about what's natural and what's not natural, and we each draw lines in different places. One common definition of nature is... the phenomena of the physical world collectively, including plants, animals, the landscape, and other features and products of the earth, as opposed to humans or human creations. We often think of nature as that which is not touched by or impacted by humans, but why are humans and their creations unnatural? When did that decision happen?

[17:44]

The teachings of the Buddha tell us that all phenomena are intimately interconnected in a web of relationship. When we think of nature as something that is separate from humanity, it becomes easier to imagine that we as humans are not part of that web of relationship with all phenomena. The Buddha Dharma encourages us to expand our limited notion of self to include the entire universe. to recognize that interdependence is happening, and if we recognize that as reality, we will naturally wish to take care of all beings and all phenomena. Our ancestor A. H. Dogen said, the entire earth is the true human body. And modern-day Buddhist ecologist Joanna Macy talks about taking care of the earth out of a sense of universal self-interest. Suzuki Roshi once said, even if human beings vanished from the earth, Buddhism would still exist.

[18:51]

That is why I am interested in Buddhism. Even if human beings vanished from the earth, Buddhism would still exist. That is why I am interested in Buddhism. So, obviously, if we take this statement, literally, it doesn't make any sense. Buddhism would not exist without humans. In particular, Buddhism would not exist without Shakyamuni Buddha. But maybe when Suzuki Roshi said Buddhism, he wasn't talking about the historical Buddhist tradition, but about Dharma in a wider sense. The word Dharma, while often used interchangeably with the teachings of the Buddha, has many other meanings as well, which extend back to pre-Buddhist India. Dharma can also be defined as that which is the basis of things, the underlying nature of things, the way things are. In short, it is the truth about things, the truth about the world. And similarly, another definition of nature is the basic or inherent features of something or the essence of something.

[20:00]

So it's certainly true that Soto Zen and other Buddhist traditions, when viewed from one angle, are constructed human creations affected by social and political trends, only accessible to certain people at certain times and in certain places. This is the view from our relative reality. However, there's another way to look at what it is we're doing here, and that's the big mind angle, which may seem contradictory to this historical perspective, but is actually completely interrelated and equally true. In this sense, dharma is completely available and accessible to everyone. and not dependent on anything, even the existence of humans. In this sense, dharma can't really be pinned down because dharma is the way things are, and the way things are is constantly changing. And I imagine this is what Suzuki Roshi is pointing to. Even if human beings vanish from the earth, the way things are would still exist, the truth about things.

[21:06]

So coming back to zazen, we can't really say... That zazen is completely natural, and we can't say that it is just a cultural accretion or creation either. It's both. But I think in a way it's easier for us to see zazen as a human-created activity with a specific cultural and religious context than it is to see the timeless, formless, unborn, unnameable quality of zazen. When I first lived at Green Gulch, we had a movie night every week. And one of the most popular movies was Baraka. For those of you who haven't seen Baraka, it's a documentary with no narrative or voiceover. There's only nonverbal music and images. And it was shot in 24 different countries. It begins with scenes from a Buddhist temple in China, the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem, whirling Sufi dervishes,

[22:11]

And as the movie goes on, the scenes and the music become more and more modern and more and more chaotic, with priests shuffling down a street in Tokyo while people rush by him, busy subway stations, baby chicks being sent down a chute and their beaks getting clipped off. And then the scenes just get more and more dire. There's shots of prostitutes outside of a brothel in Bangkok, and burning oil fields in Kuwait, the concentration camps at Auschwitz, the killing fields of Cambodia. And then at the very end, mercifully loops back to scenes of worship and quote-unquote natural splendor. And there's a scene near the beginning of Baraka of a snow monkey sitting in a hot spring in Japan. And this scene comes to mind for me whenever I think of this question of whether zazen is a natural act or a cultural appreciation, because to me, this snow monkey is so clearly having a meditative experience.

[23:21]

It's kind of hard to convey in words. I recommend watching the film if you can. But somehow this very simple scene of a snow monkey sitting in hot, steaming water with this beatific, peaceful look on his face made a huge impact on me. And when I find myself getting wrapped up in the form side of things, in tracing all the different styles and ways of meditating and of practicing the Buddha way that have evolved out of different traditions, I sometimes come back to that snow monkey as a kind of touchstone of simplicity and universality. Even though there are many different manifestations and expressions of the Buddha Dharma, There is also something ubiquitous about zazen, something uncreated and all-inclusive, which for me is the most powerful part of our practice, the manifestation of true reality. Gary Snyder, Zen poet and environmental activist, argues that yoga and meditation might have their prehistoric roots in the requirements of the hunter,

[24:31]

learning to be motionless for a day, putting one's mind in an open, spacious state so that animals won't be spooked or alerted to your presence. The perfect balance between being completely relaxed and also completely alert. This is our zazen practice. Sitting still with great energy. And every creature, human or otherwise, practices this backward step. of quieting down and entering the still point, which is the birthplace of all activity, all form. What could be more natural than intuition, attention, awareness, and stillness? Even if human beings vanished from the earth, Buddhism would still exist. That is why I am interested in Buddhism. I also appreciate the film Baraka because it draws parallels and connections between different cultures around the world while also celebrating their individual beauty and their difference.

[25:44]

And this is the harmony of difference and equality. As Buddhism moves through the world, through time and space, it acquires various cultural accretions, different styles of robes, chanting in different languages, etc., And then every now and again, certain schools want to get rid of all those cultural accretions and return to the essentials. But it's impossible for us to completely get rid of our cultural context. Sojin Mel Weitzman, maybe 25 years ago or so, in talking about the relationship between American Buddhists and Japanese Buddhists said, should we become more Japanese or should the Japanese become more Western? We can simply respect our differences. We can honor our Japanese brothers and sisters for being Japanese, and they can honor us for being who we are. This is universal practice.

[26:46]

It doesn't belong to anybody, but it belongs to all of us. And this is Sojin still. When I was young, I was looking for my Jewish roots. I was looking for a Hasidic Jewish teacher, and I found Suzuki Roshi. And that's what he was. It's true. I'm sure that deep down he knew it because where we met was the place where sectarianism and tribalism doesn't matter. So in our world today, when everywhere we turn there is tribalism, exclusion, war, and acts of terror due to difference, can we create a space that is welcoming to everyone who wants to be a part of it? place that is part of the sectarian world, but where people have a chance to meet each other, as Sojin said, in a place where sectarianism and tribalism don't matter. Meditation and mindfulness are becoming increasingly popular in our Western culture and are being touted as a way of maximizing efficiency and attaining success.

[28:01]

In some cases, meditation techniques are being divorced from their religious roots and context and offered to the masses in a more universal, accessible way. And there is inevitably some backlash from practitioners advocating for integrity. In this tradition, we sometimes say zazen is good for nothing. This might seem discouraging at first, especially to those who come to practice hoping for self-improvement, but it is just meant to remind us that while we pursue our goals and intentions on the relative world plane, in the ultimate sense, there is nowhere to get to, nothing to attain, no other person to be other than this person. I am glad that meditation practice is becoming more accessible and available to people, and at the same time, I hope that meditation doesn't become just another... for people, another form of trying to get something and become someone else.

[29:05]

You can waste an entire life doing that. The mind that desperately desires to reach another level of experience inadvertently ignores the basic light that constitutes all experience. And Our practice of zazen is a practice of experiencing ourselves as we are, without anything extra added on, without grasping or rejecting, allowing the layers that have accumulated and accreted on ourselves to fall away, even as we continue to inhabit this complex burning world. I was clearing out the Sheikah file cabinet, getting ready for the next Sheikah, and I found a folder that just said poetry, and it's full of poetry, which was a delightful discovery.

[30:11]

So I'm going to read a short poem by Robinson Jeffers. He lived in Carmel. He was mostly famous in the 1920s and 1930s. And he was an icon of the environmental movement. He knew J. Krishnamurti. And he, I guess, espoused a philosophy that was called inhumanism. It believed that transcending conflict requires human concerns be de-emphasized in favor of the boundless whole. So this is called Carmel Point. The extraordinary patience of things. This beautiful place defaced with a crop of suburban houses. How beautiful when we first beheld it. Unbroken field of poppy and lupine walled with clean cliffs.

[31:20]

No intrusion but two or three horses pasturing or a few milk cows rubbing their flanks on the outcrop rock heads. Now the spoiler has come. Does it care? Not faintly. It has all time. It knows the people are a tide that faintly swells and in time will ebb and all their works dissolve. Meanwhile, the image of the pristine beauty lives in the very grain of the granite, safe as the endless ocean that climbs our cliff. As for us, we must un-center our minds from ourselves. We must un-humanize our views a little and become confident as the rock and the ocean that we were made from. So we dedicate the merit of this talk to all beings.

[32:26]

May they be happy and free from suffering. And may you all sleep well tonight. Thank you very much. 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 sfcc.org and click Giving.

[32:54]

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