Seems we may have had a little hiccup with the bell. Please excuse us. Glad you're here. My name is Kodo. This is the Wednesday Dharma Talk with San Francisco Zen Center. At the invitation of the head of practice, our speaker for the evening is Zesho Susan O'Connell. To say just a little bit about Zesho Susan O'Connell, the Dharma heir of Tension Reb Anderson. lived for many, many years at Zen Center, including a long period of training at Green Gulch Farm, Tassajara, and City Center, and also served as Zen Center president, and is now the spiritual director of Inso Village. Thank you very much for joining us. We will begin with the Sutra opening verse, which you see in the chat. Please follow along with microphones muted. surpassed penetrating and perfect dharma is rarely met with even in a hundred thousand million cowpads having it to see and listen to to remember and accept i vow to taste the truth of the tathagata's word

[11:07]

I'd very much like to thank the Tonto, Nancy Petrin, and Abiding Abbot, David Zimmerman, and the practice leadership of the city center for inviting me to speak tonight. I also want to thank my teacher, Ken Chin-Rab Anderson, and express my gratitude for the peer support and feedback that I get from both my students, people who I call my students, from my fellow Zen teachers. In most circumstances, including these, I'm pretty pleased to be asked to offer a teaching because it necessitates that I put a spotlight on the question, what's in the forefront for me? What has meaning and energy? What is the most important thing? And throughout the pandemic, I was asking myself in these particular circumstances of the pandemic, what is the most important thing?

[12:26]

What can I focus on that would offer the most benefit to the largest number of beings? And the answer during the pandemic that came most often was to study and practice balance. To practice creating a stable and flexible base from which to act, to not overreact or underreact. Brings up the vision of me doing a bit of couch potatoing during the pandemic, so that would maybe qualify as underreacting, but that was my inquiry for most of the pandemic. And in Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind, in the book, Suzuki Roshi offers 17 different answers to the question, what is the most important thing? And I read on David Chadwick's website, he did an analysis of all of the talks that we have that Suzuki Roshi gave.

[13:33]

And in those talks, the number of times that Suzuki Roshi asks that question and provides a different answer each time is 87. So there's no right answer. Only each of us sincerely asking that question. So now as we start to emerge from the cocoon of the COVID opportunity, something new, and it's actually something very old, but Something new is coming forward for me in response to that question. It's related to balance. But instead of just balance itself, I'm now asking what aspect of my understanding of the way things are, my understanding of the Dharma, what might need to be increased or

[14:45]

or deepened or more embodied so that I am able to be the most compassionate, open-hearted and wise person that I can be. Because ultimately for me, that's the most constant answer to the question. What's the most important thing? The most important thing for me is to be the most compassionate open-hearted and wisest person I can be and to act from that place for the benefit of the world. I am yearning, I find myself yearning for less selfishness, less self-centeredness. So what's your answer? What brings you to practice?

[15:51]

What keeps you coming back? What cements your bottoms to the cushion? I'm going to take a second. Let that move around for you and see just what comes forward. Because maybe that thing that comes forward is the one that's foremost for you right now. It's in the front. What is... the reason that you practice. Got it? Got a reason? Well, I'm asking you to consider this because I'm going to be bringing up some instructions for how to practice that might be challenging. And I think it's always helpful for us to go back to our intention to motivate us to stay engaged when the going gets tough.

[16:52]

Line ourselves up with that intimate request. When we first come to Zen practice, I propose that our reasons include wanting something we think we don't have or wanting to be rid of something. Does that sound familiar? We humans desire, we hate, we dream that we understand. You're human. And as humans were caught in a perfect storm of dissatisfaction, which we feed with the efforts we constantly make to control the level of satisfaction. That's the storm. Most of us start with our ideas about what we will gain from practice and how this practice will relieve our suffering.

[18:04]

And it will, you know. At least the Buddha said it will. And then he admonished us to believe him, but to find out for ourselves. So we come to a Zen center to receive instruction about the practice of Zazen, meditation, which we hear is a helpful step to mitigating suffering. And we start with wanting. Many people, let's see how many of you are here. Well, I can't see that on my screen right now, but let's say 50, 60 people, 70 people. Many people in this Zoom meeting tonight were introduced to Zen meditation in person or online from one of our Zen teachers doing Zazen instruction. We offer it every Saturday morning at City Center and every Sunday morning at Green Gulch.

[19:11]

you may or may not realize that the instruction you received was largely based on a teaching or a fascicle called the Fukanzazengi, written by Ehe Dogen, a 13th century Japanese monk and the founder of our Soto Zen school. The Fukanzazengi is thought by some scholars to have been composed sometime between the year 1227 and 1233, shortly after Dogen's return to Japan from years of study in China. Some other scholars like Carl Bielefeld say couldn't have been composed before 1242 because it's similar to another Dogen fascicle, the Zazenshin, which was composed in that year. So regardless of the exact date of the first composition, It's clear that the material went through many rounds of editing over the author's lifetime.

[20:17]

And now we have it and we get to study it and actualize this amazing teaching. The title, Fukan Zazenki. Page skipped a little too. We can break the title down this way. The Fu, the character pronounced Fu means universal or always applicable. Kan means admonitions or recommendations. Zha is to sit and Zen is meditation. Zazen is seated meditation. And the last syllable, Yi represents principle. So the title can be translated as the always applicable and recommended way to express the principle of seated meditation.

[21:28]

Probably if we're going to continue to study Zen and Zazen, it might be good to study this. always applicable and recommended way. Meditation and various instructions have been around for a very long time. Even this text is based on earlier Chinese manuals that Dogen adapted. But there's no one quite like our founder, Dogen. He had an amazing facility for combining complex philosophical, poetic musings with very specific and concrete ways to cut carrots, wash one's face, hold one's hand in the mudra. And the Fukan Zazengi is an example of this combination. The part of the fascicle that you may have been exposed to in Zazen instruction is the set

[22:38]

very specific and detailed instructions about how to arrange our body when we begin to sit. So see if this sounds familiar. Nose lined up with our navel. Ears lined up with our shoulders. Legs either in half lotus or full lotus or other positions that create a stable base. Tongue behind the front teeth at the roof of the mouth. eyes open in a soft, receptive gaze. Dogen tells us this. He gives us specificity. But this isn't the part of the teaching of the Fu Kanzanzagi that I want to talk about today. I want to talk about Dogen's instructions for how to meet ourselves. breakthrough delusion.

[23:42]

How to become free of identifying with our thoughts. How to facilitate the transformation that leaves us to have a better chance to be the kind of person that benefits others. I want to investigate what Dogen means when he tells us in this fascicle to take the backward step and turn the light in. So that's a warning. We're headed there. Perhaps after the meditation instructor instructor that gave you Zazen instruction, when they finished conveying the kind of physical parameters for sitting and maybe gave you a few minutes to sit still and try out the posture. Maybe someone in the room asked, gee, these posture recommendations are great, but what should I do about my mind?

[24:49]

What should I do about my mind? There are many styles of meditation and many kinds of instructions. Some offer vocal guidance, as you sit, helping us focus on our breath or doing something called body sweeps, where there's very specific attention, which we are helped to pay on various parts of our body. And some types of meditation offer visualizations or mantras. With Zen, we are both stingy and generous in that we offer very little in the way of instructions on how to meet our thinking mind. I like to offer the instruction that I heard when I first came to Zen Center that Linda Ruth Cutts offered, which is very simple.

[26:03]

It's this. When thoughts arise, don't grab them and don't push them away. That's it. This is a minimal approach to guidance. But I find it generous in that we start at the place that all meditation practices are headed. We jump in the deep end. And we're told, just sit. And the wideness of this instruction seems very, very generous to me. But then I tend to prefer the deep end, which is why I am a Zen student. Dogen is also very generous. In the Fukanza Zengi, He offers us more than that phrase about not grabbing thoughts or pushing them away.

[27:09]

His instructions are practical and poetic and not easy to understand. Take, for instance, the paragraph I alluded to a few minutes ago about taking the backward step. It goes like this. You should therefore cease from practice based on intellectual understanding, pursuing words and following after speech and learn the backward step that turns your light inwardly to illuminate yourself. Body and mind of themselves will drop away and your original face will be manifest. If you want to attain suchness, you should practice suchness without delay. Read it again. You should therefore cease from practice based on intellectual understanding, pursuing words and following after speech and learn the backward step, which turns your light inwardly to illuminate yourself.

[28:23]

Body and mind of themselves will drop away and your original face will be manifest. If you want to attain suchness, you should practice suchness. without delay. Before turning to that paragraph and exploring a little bit, let's just go back and remind ourselves again of the question I began with. In fact, Dogen himself asks that question in the very first paragraph of the Fukan Zazenki. He says, what is the use of going off? here and there to practice. He sets up the whole teaching with that question, elevating that intention. And I'm asking again because I think we need the encouragement of remembering the importance of our intentions as we're exposed to a strange and difficult instruction.

[29:30]

You may need to remember that We probably did not come to this practice until we had tried just about everything else and found it to be insufficient to relieve our suffering. So let's go back to your intention. What is the use of practice? The answer for you could be that you to be more present, or it could be in the form of wanting your life to be less painful. These intentions are wholesome, I would say, and instructive. Because both cases, wanting something more or wanting something less, are indicative of the very process

[30:34]

that creates the dissatisfaction that has defined our human lives. The wishing for things to be different and the vain attempts to control the rheostat of pleasure and pain by pursuing words and following after speech or what is known as discursive thought. And also trying to control things by placing ourselves in the primary spot and focusing outward, trying to change the circumstances that we think are causing us pain. Wanting wholesome things is wholesome. And it's fine. It's okay to start with wanting. but how do we actually get what we want?

[31:38]

We need to want in order to understand what it means to let go of the habitual way we try to solve our problems. We're taught by Dogen to take the intention we brought to this practice, stop pursuing it and shift our focus. turn the light of our attention from trying to find the answers in words or things and thereby experience our original face. This is the revolutionary teaching, one of the revolutionary teachings of this fascicle. So in the fascicle, Logan goes on to tell us a little bit more about the how. He says, a quiet room is suitable.

[32:43]

Eat and drink moderately. Cast aside all involvements and cease all affairs. Do not think good or bad. Do not administer pros and cons. Cease all the movement of the conscious mind, the gauging of all thoughts and views. Have no designs on becoming a Buddha. So quiet room is suitable. Eat and drink moderately. Cast aside involvements and cease all affairs. Don't think good or bad. Don't administer pros and cons. Cease all the movement of the conscious mind, the gauging of all thoughts and views. Have no designs on becoming. Dogen is sort of saying, how do we get what we want? Well, we stop sticking to what we want or gauging if we got it.

[33:46]

That might be possible. Does it sound intriguing? It does to me. He then says, he also says, Stop clinging to names and places and stop being so interested in storytelling. Stop relying on words and pictures and the way they make us feel momentarily either happy or regretful. Stop recreating the faults divide between self and other. Stop making ourself the focus. Take the backward step and turn the light around. It's helpful for this practice of or process of the backward step to be set up properly.

[34:58]

For instance, being very, very settled in a quiet room with just enough food and water. And it has a lot to do with casting aside everything we want to cling to. Not grabbing, not pushing away. Buddhism is a process of untying knots. of swimming upstream, and of undoing the habits of mind that have been laid down for millennia. The gauging of all thoughts and views, the administering pros and cons. It is possible to undo these habits. And I propose that this radical activity is the only way we can be ultimately free and happy. but it's not easy.

[36:03]

Dogen's instructions draw our attention to the habit of thinking good and bad. When we hear this, what do we hear? Be careful because we can get caught in thinking that not thinking good and bad is good, right? That's how strong this habit is. We enter into that territory of not thinking good or bad, and we start to consider whether that might be good. So we sit down. We align our body in a very specific way so that the body is holding itself up. We observe the busyness of our minds. We watch the gauging of thoughts and views. We watch our wanting. And we see that with the most wholesome wishes, we're just revving things up and causing ourself more suffering, liking, disliking.

[37:16]

What would happen if we lost interest in this? Not push it away, but just lost interest. And then maybe the stillness that is born from the renunciation of clinging, our attention might just turn inward towards itself. If we're not engaging and so busy outward, maybe the attention is already always just paying attention to itself. let's bring that possibility to the foreground. This bringing the possibility of paying attention to attention to the foreground is, I would say, the back step. Now, sometimes we can stumble upon an experience of stopping, of disengaging.

[38:31]

which is often preceded by deep calm and stillness. I was on a retreat at Green Gulch Farm many years ago. The retreat was held by the venerable Thich Nhat Hanh. It was my first multiple day retreat and I was pretty new to all of this. And I was getting bored and distracted by what seemed like Thich Nhat Hanh's very simple teaching of breathe and smile. I almost left the retreat. It wasn't difficult enough for me. That's how arrogant I was. Then Thich Nhat Hanh started to talk about the suffering of the monks that he was among in the jails in Cambodia. and about the stench and the screams and the pain and the hunger and how they sat in the midst of this.

[39:40]

And he drew a picture for my mind about how one could look at the pain of any situation as if it were a flower in the bottom of our belly and this pain, this difficulty And one could just touch, gently put one finger down and touch the pedals. And then the pedal would slowly come up. The pain would slowly rise. And for some reason, that so comforted me. Having a way to deal with pain that severe that he was describing and, of course, that we all have, it completely relaxed me. I stopped fighting for control. I stopped protecting myself from pain. Then for unknowable reasons, at that moment, a thought arose from me.

[40:48]

And here was the thought. What if I were able to shut off the light in the projector that was projecting all the images and thoughts of liking and disliking onto the screen of my mind's eye. I was film producer for many years, so that's perhaps why that particular thought arose, but there it was, it rose. And so I asked that question and poof. Next thing I knew it was lunchtime and the The Zendo had been vacated. I was sitting there by myself. For a time, the constant analysis of pros and cons, the activity of liking or disliking, what I was being taught, had the power cord cut.

[41:53]

There was cessation of all thoughts and like those are gifts. Those are little encouragements. And I offer you this story to show you that anyone can be ripe for the rewiring of the system that creates our unhappiness. I was pretty new, naive, more arrogant than I am now. And I had that gift. So I know it's possible. And Dogen, in this teaching and many of his teachings, gives us a pathway for rewiring practice. First, sit down in a stable and specific way and be aware of how much discursive thinking we are doing.

[43:03]

consider disengaging. And then in a calm and spacious environment, take a step that I did not know to take when I was at the retreat in Green Gulch. But now I would say it is possible in the spaciousness of disengagement to shift the energy of consciousness from a self-focused perspective. where there are objects of thought and separation, shifted to consciousness itself, to the ground of being. Shift our focus from outward thoughts and views and participate in the receptive function of our being. Turn the light around. In the environment of stillness, that's available when we cease attaching to all thoughts and views.

[44:07]

It's possible to experience and know in a visceral way the essence of the reality that we refer to when we say we are all in this together. We say this, but do we know what this really means? It is possible to get out of our own and dance with all beings in the arena of non-dual awareness. Not for the sake of the dance, but to inform our everyday life. To lessen the selfishness by knowing the reality of we're all in this together. To let everything come forward and experience itself without our manipulation. And to let our bodies absorb this visceral connectivity to everything in a way that is difficult to forget.

[45:17]

At the beginning when I said I hunger for less selfishness, this is the hunger. This is the hunger. for the body to absorb this visceral connectivity in way that is difficult to forget. So that when challenged in day to day life and moment to moment life, there's this deep understanding on a cellular level. When I told Nancy, I was going to talk about this. The backward step, she thought it might be interesting if I explored how studying in this way is manifesting in my day to day life. Very briefly, I can say this. My life has been very focused on things known as deadlines and budgets and marketing and finance.

[46:22]

Maybe yours, too. But from time to time, when I sit down next to one of my business partners whose life is going awry and allow the sense of connection to be felt and communicated, verbally, non-verbally, I'm aware that deeply knowing the nature and reality of this connectivity is my real job. That's my real job. And I want to do my real job to the best of my ability. This, I think, is a wholesome wanting that can only be fully manifested if I let it go and take the backward step, turning the light of awareness towards the source where it is clear we are not separate. I intend to continue to explore how the activity of the backward step of

[47:29]

Paying attention to attention, how it is a remedy for suffering and a release from selfish concerns and an opportunity for transformation of the way I live in the world. If I'm invited to speak again later this year, I will let you know how it's going. So. That's the offering I have. And I think now we say the ending chant and maybe there's time for a few questions. Thank you very much. May our intention equally extend to every being and place with the true merit of Buddha's way. Beings are numberless, I vow to save them.

[48:31]

Delusions are inexhaustible, I vow to end them. Dharma gates are boundless, I vow to enter them. Buddha's way is unsurpassable, I vow to become it. Thank you very much, Zesho Susan O'Connell, and thank you to the assembly. Eno's clock, looks like we have five or six minutes for some conversation. If you'd like to offer a question or a comment, please raise your Zoom hand and I can help unmute you and a reminder of our practice of move up and move back. Joe. Susan, good to see you.

[49:34]

Thank you for your teaching. One thing I've always been confused by sometimes is Zen terminology, a Buddhist terminology that's used but not explained and use the term suchness. And I've heard that term and read that term many times without ever getting an explanation of it. So could you give an explanation of what you mean or what Dogen means by? I can't even remember the phrase, but like living in suchness or accepting suchness. So, Joe, what do you think suchness is? Well, my understanding of it, if I have it, is this is the way things are. This is how life is. This is how the planet works. I think another phrase that's used, maybe that has the same meaning as things as they are. Thank you for your teaching. Well, that's something that I've always struggled with, you know, because I'm living in Bangkok now.

[50:44]

And I don't know if it's because of the I don't know if this is happening all over the world, but I've been part of a Dharma group. And the monk that led the Dharma group retired and left it with like a group, the group of people in the Dharma group. And I've seen just like the worst behavior of anyone that has experienced in Bangkok selfishness, deceit. dishonesty, even cruelty. And I'm like, what's going on? Gee, I was at the Zen Center in San Francisco for 20 years and I never experienced that. And I'm thinking, how do you deal with it when you see this kind of behavior in people that you expect to be kindhearted and compassionate and helpful? Yeah.

[51:46]

Yeah, that's a second question, but you can ask too. I think it's really important that word expectation is very dangerous and not helpful. So everybody has human frailties. Some are more subtle than others. And if they're manifesting in a really overt way right now with a group of people you're associated with, It's not really an anomaly. It's like, this is the way people are sometimes. And our job is to meet it openheartedly, maybe make some, you know, if there's danger happening, make sure that no bad things are happening to people and try to work with that. But to say they shouldn't be like that because they're Zen people, I read someplace recently someone says then people are just, you know, regular people who meditate a lot.

[52:49]

So, yeah, lower the expectation that'll help you be more present for them. They need your help. Thank you, Susan. Susan, would you like. to ask for one more brief exchange or would you like to offer a closing word? One more brief exchange. Does someone wanna say the answer to that question? What is the most important thing for you? What's the impetus for your practice? Hey, I did it. Come on, don't be shy. Okay, Bishai. We can end. Thank you, Susan.

[53:52]

A closing word? No, just thank you all very much for your practice. It's very inspiring to see people's sincere practice on a Wednesday evening. Thank you so much. And I should be able to unmute in just a moment. Thank you. Should be there now, excuse me. Thank you, Susan. [...] Thank you. Thank you. Thanks. Good night. Thank you. Susan, I was surprised there were no takers with that last inquiry.

[54:53]

Hopefully people are turning that question. It's a great question. It's really important. Thank you for your talk. Thanks for your talk. Good night. Good night, Vicki. I would have said something, but I talk all the time. I'm happy to have a conversation with me and Ann. Thank you, Susan. Recommendations on how to go to sleep now after giving a talk. That's really hard. Warm milk. Do a headstand. You don't want me to do a headstand. No, just, you know, improvise, like on the sofa. Just halfway. Get the blood flowing to your head. It's in my chest right now. Good night. Thank you. Hot milk with honey. Yeah, hot milk and nutmeg.

[55:58]

Yeah, that's good. Okay, bye-bye.

[56:01]

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