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 from people like you. Good morning. Good morning. Marcus is looking puzzled. Good morning. That's why he's scrambling back there. He's a little aware it's not working. Before the age of amplification, we had a teacher, Kobuncino Roshi, who he started here. He was invited by Suzuki. I'm just telling you this to fill in the time. And he would give talks here, you know.

[01:03]

But he spoke very quietly. And so most of the time, couldn't exactly hear what he was saying. And then, and he also spoke very slowly. So he talked like this. And then once he was sitting here, right here, and he was talking, and then he actually fell asleep during his own talk. And for some reason I was deeply impressed. And then afterwards we had a question and answers, you know, in the back of the dining room. Ah, okay. It's working. So I went to the back of the dining room with him and I thought, finally I'll hear something he's saying. But the amazing thing was, even though I got as close as I could about this far apart, I still couldn't hear what he was saying.

[02:10]

But I always thought of him as a wonderful teacher. I really did. There was something exquisite about just the way he moved, the way he related. to business. So today we're having a one-day sitting, so I am going to talk about Zazen. I'm going to talk about it in relationship to a famous Zen story, a Zen koan. And I was looking at where Suzuki Roshi talks about this, and he starts with an interesting idea. He says, Zen koans can seem obscure, difficult to understand, but as you start to get in touch with moment to moment experience of what's happening, they start to make sense.

[03:18]

He said they're more easily understood. But I would say it's not so much understand it's almost like an affirmation of our own experience. And really, the methodology of Zen, if we dare use such a term, is that we experience the experience that's being experienced. And that is our guiding light. And as that becomes more experienced, as that becomes more evident, it instructs us, it guides us, and it enables waking up.

[04:25]

And as we engage in that process, We both discover that our whole life is a story. Our whole life is a Zen story, a Zen coin. I was reading a book recently called something like Design Your Life. And it said, well, there's three questions. Where are you? What do you want? And what's the ground speed of a North American swallow? And then he says, well, two of them are easy to answer, right? Where you are and the ground speed of a North American swallow. Just Google it. But what do you want? That's the work of a lifetime. And not only that, it's an evolving and changing thing.

[05:28]

In the process of Zazen, the engagement in zazen. This experience, the experience, you're experiencing. Now, I think I made that up. But I expect that one day I'll pick up a book or a sutra or something and there will be and I'll think, oh, that's where I got it. But so what? It's like, can there be some way of talking about practice, some way of thinking about it, some way of engaging it that sparks for us? It enlivens for us. And it's a nice thing to compare to I should. I should do this. Ah. Is that enlightening?

[06:36]

Does it spark? Is there something about it that quickens your enthusiasm? And you can even watch this in your Zazhen. Are you sitting in a way that feels like this dutiful, virtuous thing you should do, but actually you don't really want to? even though you took the day off, fixed up your life to come here and sit here, you know, when you actually get on the cushion, and of course, you don't have to, this is not a question or an inquiry that happens just here, happens wherever we sit. In fact, it happens wherever we're in the process of being alive. is there a spark?

[07:38]

Is there a way of engaging that's enlivening? And so this koan is coming at that. But as often is the case with Zen koans, it doesn't come linearly. Because the learning process It's not, okay, here's what you should think. Oh, okay, that's what I should think. Is that a learning process? Or is that just some new form of habituation that you're imposing on yourself? The learning process is that enlivening process. Like that book I was reading, Designing Your Life. It goes on and then it relates to this question, what do you want?

[08:44]

And it has its own ideas and strategies. But it's not saying, here's the life you should live. How the heck can anyone else tell you the life you should live? let alone write a book telling everyone the life they should live. How can the life we should live authentically, enthusiastically? How can there be a prescription? But maybe there can be an approach. And so this is the territory that Zen and try to illustrate, communicate. But maybe not so linearly, so the mind can just take hold of it and say, okay, I got it.

[09:56]

Maybe that's the biggest difficulty of all. if we think we got it. Okay. So here's the kohan. It's a conversation between Nangaku, a famous Zen teacher, and his disciple Basso, who went on to become an even more famous Zen teacher. And Basso is a new student, and he's very diligent. He does zazen all the time, as much as he can. And... So one day, Basa was doing saizen, and then Gaku was walking by, and he asked him, what are you doing? That wonderful way, you know, you can watch yourself do something and explore what's underneath. Especially when you're doing something and you're adding something.

[11:04]

you know, like you're doing it in hurry. I remember once I was paying a bill and I was writing a check and I was doing it fast and I thought, hmm. And as I got in touch with what was underneath, it was like, I don't want to be doing this and I'm going to do it as quickly as possible. But how dangerous that we miss some part of our life by trying to rush through it. Then when it comes time to the part of our lives that we want to savor and be alive in, will the rushing have become habituated Will we rush through it despite ourselves?

[12:06]

What are you doing? Then there's the factual answer. Okay, I'm sitting in the Buddha hall listening to a talk. And then in the Zen world, with what mind are you sitting in the Buddha hall listening to a talk? What are you doing? And I imagine Basso looking at him like, it's pretty obvious what I'm doing. I'm doing Zazen. And he says, well, how come you're doing Zazen? And he says, well, I'm doing Zazen to become a Buddha. And of course, if you've read a little Zazen, you think, oh,

[13:10]

He was trying to achieve something. He's trying to be something more than he was in the moment. But if we watch ourselves, and we discover in our doing, we add in all sorts of amazing, wonderful and awful things. I want to get this just right. I want to be a Buddha. I don't want to be this limited, awkward, confused, unsatisfied person I am. I want to be some exalted, wonderful state of being. And Nangaku says to him, Nangaku goes and he picks up a clay tile and he starts to polish it.

[14:26]

And then Basso says to him, well, what are you doing? And he says, well, I am turning this tile into a jewel. You're busy with your process of perfection, and I'm doing my process of perfection. And then, of course, Basso takes a bait and says, how can you turn a clay tile into a jewel? And then Gakko says, well, how can you turn a human being, a striving human being, into a Buddha? And then how does that inform how you sit? How will that influence how you engage the process of sitting?

[15:31]

And here's another concept I'd like to offer you. And that is the concept that comes up from the word original. It goes both ways. It comes from origin and it goes towards originality. It has both of those qualities right there in one word. And in a way, this is A wonderful example of Zen practice. Usually what we do is we pluck from our experience the most notable, significant events, experiences, moments, and then we glue them together into reality. Like we make a collage.

[16:38]

And we do it in a flash. And actually, we do the same with the past. Of all the past experiences we had, if you watch yourself, there are particular ones you're inclined to think about. Recall. People ask you to talk about yourself. Well, when I was whatever, this happened. This wonderful thing. this terrible thing. And then we do the same with the future. Tomorrow's gonna be a really difficult day. Tomorrow's gonna be a wonderful day. That's gonna be a really challenging task. Oh, it's gonna be a lot of fun to do that. we glue together this world.

[17:41]

Past, present, and future. And then this notion of experiencing the experience that's being experienced. How can we, as Suzuki Roshi says, how can we have that moment-to-moment experience that illuminates coin of life. Whether you want to call that coin, who am I? Where am I? What am I doing? What do I want? I mean, they're all relevant. They're all being responded to intentionally and unintentionally. And as we return to the origin, the experience of the moment, it helps to loosen up, to unglue the world we've glued into place.

[18:52]

And the experience of now becomes now. This becomes now rather than... something that we pass over because the world we've glued together and the narrative and the commentary that go with it are the dominant experience. And usually when we start to sit, when we start a period of Zazen, when we start to sit for the first time and the hundredth time and the thousandth time, this narrative of the world that's been put in place, glued together, is extraordinarily compelling and incredibly evocative.

[19:59]

It conjures up images. It conjures up concerns, desires, confusions. And the request of Zazen is in the midst of that, can we make contact? We could start to think about it. And then usually thinking about it involves fixing it. I shouldn't have all these thoughts or memories. My mind should be pristine. Now. But actually, we are having the experience that we're having. And so the process of Zazen is that's where we begin. It's like, what's the answer to where are you? You're right here.

[21:02]

Right now. Not anywhere else. And part of our antidote or the way our life can become unsatisfying is that we sort of diminish now and hold other somewhere else, some other time as an exquisite possibility. Even if it's just to resolve some nagging negative emotion. There's a... It's like a vow. It's like an alignment. It's experiencing the experience that's being experienced.

[22:07]

It's like reminding ourselves that now is happening. Now is... the event, the only event that can be experienced. And if into now I bring memory, then experience that. If into now I bring anticipation, experience that. And as we do this, we start to undo what's being put together. what has become habituated. And then with that attitude, with that disposition, we can start to engage intentionally. We can start to attend to the experience of body.

[23:11]

Not because we should, not because that's going to fix everything, but because it's an exquisite way to make contact with now. There is a sensation happening, a physical sensation that's happening that allows contact with now. And then there's a physical alignment of body that enables that. And I would say to you, if you haven't been to Zaza and instruction, I would say, please do. In fact, I would say, go several times. Because each person that talks about it describes it a little bit different. And you bring a different mind to it, and you hear something different. And in between, do zazen.

[24:22]

Zazen, we learn how to do zazen by doing zazen. We learn how to be alive by being alive. Bringing this mind that's attending and learning. And maybe learning's a misleading, but maybe realizing. When you pay close attention to the body, you realize what upright posture is. You realize what it is to let the body be balanced. What it is to let the body be open and settle down. You realize what it is to let the breath breathe. In the process of these realizations, they're enabled by the way in which you discover the body's not quite balanced.

[25:30]

The body's not quite relaxed. The breath, when we bring awareness to the breath, the first impulse is to control it. Okay, I should be breathing like this. Making contact. And literally, experientially, learning the difference between what it is to make contact and experience and what it is to have an idea about what should be experienced. And this is part of what Nangaku is trying to point out to Basso. Are you getting caught and having an idea about what should be experienced? Because in the process of sitting, as we sit, quite often, maybe most usually, it sort of quickens the process of our being.

[26:42]

Sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes we go, we become quieter, more spacious. But a lot of the time, it seems to go the other way. The thing that you've been worrying about, well, that's what comes and takes center stage. Some deep yearning, some unusual psychosomatic feeling in your body just turns up the volume. In our common sense mind, we'd say, OK, I've got to get all that under control, quiet it all down, so the pristine Buddha mind can happen. So then we get busy with that. But actually, the process of Zazen is experience the experience that's being experienced.

[27:50]

And in the process of engaging it, we start to get at what's underneath. It takes us back to the origin. I'm thinking about this project. Then as you attend to that, is it fed by desire? Is it fed by anxiety? Is it fed by a certain uncertainty about your life that you want to have more predictability? And how is that reverberating through your being? As you let the inhale happen, can you let even that another phenomena? Can you let it come in and go out?

[28:56]

Can you let it arise and let it fall away? To make it sound special, we can say that as we experience each moment, it has its own realization. not a cognitive process. There may be an aha moment afterwards. Ah! So, that's why I'm so anxious about that project. Okay? Maybe, maybe not. That's the mind. But any experiencing the realization, the feeling it deeply, physically, and emotionally and beyond both. We learn and that way of engaging can guide our life.

[30:02]

It can guide our life in two ways. It undoes the patterns, the patterns that just come in habitually. It offers something of the originality of life. That aha that has a kind of a spark, a zest. When we see that mind grasp its way of relating, when we see it and feel it and experience it, It becomes its own jewel. It becomes its own Buddha. Now if we make a big deal out of it, well then, we're getting wrapped up inside our own constructions again. But when we feel it, it's almost like it's energy.

[31:07]

And if you think about originality, those moments... where you're engaged in something, and it sparkles. And it can be as simple as hearing a sound, or it can be engaging a task and finding something within it. Every now and then, because of the wonderful world of Zen, I'm obliged to do calligraphy of kanji, Chinese, Japanese characters. And I do them with a brush and black ink on white silk. And as you can imagine, if you make a mistake with black ink on white silk, it's not going away. So it's very demanding.

[32:12]

In terms of skill level with this kind of calligraphy, I would say I'm at like second grade or maybe third grade. There's a wonderful... We have a big scroll there in the hallway. It's the Heart Sutra. And I was talking to the person that did it, a wonderful Chinese calligrapher. And he told me before he does it, He spends about a week preparing and he fasts for three days. When you have a black ink on a brush and you're writing on white silk, it asks for everything you've got. so much yearn for perfection.

[33:18]

And you seldom get it. And you do it, and you finish, and my mind goes, oh dear. our life? What aspect of our life is not asking for our full engagement? Which of the challenges your life presents isn't worthy of your wisdom and energy and commitment? So, in zazen, to the origin. We return to a very elemental embodied process. And it's our engagement that's the catalyst that creates the learning.

[34:38]

And if we simply distract ourselves into how I should be, and what should be the outcome, and we miss the momentary jewels. I do that calligraphy, and then I look at it. You know, after you say, oh dear, a couple of hundred times, even that has its own kind of beauty and charm. Even that you can be grateful for. Oh, don't get so caught up in yourself. And don't be so hard on yourself either. You start to see in between. The engagement has a beauty. It has a jewel.

[35:44]

Similarly with Zazen. And you watch. And you participate in the amazing mystery of being alive. And all the thoughts and feelings and memories and images and anticipations that arise in your being. a metaphor for your life, like an epic poem on being alive. And this can start to have a sense that of course my mind will create success and failure.

[36:50]

But it falls short. Those notions fall short of what it is to be alive. This life, this singularity of being that I call me, goes way beyond the little box I want to put it in. It has its own preciousness. you're sitting zazen to be a Buddha? How come you're polishing a tile to turn it into a jewel? Could the process of being awakened really fit inside your notion of should and should not?

[37:55]

think about it, it doesn't really sound so plausible. But can each moment have a spark? Can any moment have a spark? Can there be a spark more than once a week, once a day? Can each moment reverberate in its own being. And that's how I hear this poem. It's famous. The poem's called famous. Using the word famous as a kind of registry of appreciation as you experience something. In that moment, it's famous to you.

[39:01]

Famous. The river is famous to the fish. The loud voice is famous to silence, which knew it would inherit the earth before anybody said so. The cat sleeping on the fence is famous to the birds watching him from the birdhouse. The tear is famous briefly, to the cheek. The idea you carry close to your bosom is famous to your bosom. The boot is famous to the earth, more famous than the dress shoe, which is famous only to floors. The bent photograph is famous to the one who carries it, but not all that famous to the one who is pictured. I want to be famous to shuffling man who smile while crossing streets, sticky children in grocery lines, famous as the one who smiled back.

[40:09]

I want to be famous in the way a pulley is famous or a buttonhole, not because it did anything spectacular, but because it never forgot what it could do. in the middle of our earnestness about practice. You know, it's really something to sit all day and keep endeavoring to experience the experience that's being experienced. It does require a fortitude, an earnestness. In the middle of that earnestness, that heroic commitment, can there be an almost lighthearted appreciation? Can there be a kind of a marveling?

[41:18]

Hmm, look at that. And for those of you who were going back out into this beautiful sunny day. Maybe as you walk out the door, you can perplex yourself with some impossible question. Where am I going? What am I doing? What's going to happen? And then like a treasure hunt, or the kind of adventure you went on when you were three. Go off into the world and discover what it creates. Thank you. 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.

[42:27]

Your financial support helps us to continue to offer the Dharma. For more information, please visit sfzc.org and click giving. May we fully enjoy the Dharma.

[42:43]

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