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, everybody. It's nice to be here. See familiar faces. Some unfamiliar faces. Sitting down is kind of like dressing in front of like 70 people. Okay. My name is Robert Thomas. I'm the president of San Francisco Zen Center, which is... San Francisco Zen Center, for people who don't know, is all three of our temples.

[01:03]

That's the name of our organization in a larger sense. Pasa Jara, Green Gulch Farm, and City Center here. I've been at Zen Center for about living in residence at Zen Center about 17 years. And a big part of my practice, even though I did come to practice and I went to practice meditation very intensively at Tassajara for six years, a huge part of my, say, of the picture of my life as a practitioner is off the cushion. is not on the cushion, but off the cushion, extending whatever happens on the cushion into my life.

[02:08]

That's a big focus of my practice and what I would like to explore together with you today in the next few minutes that we have together. So if it's anybody's first time, just feel free to relax. Settle into whatever position is comfortable for you. Don't worry about moving. If you'd like to change your position, if you'd like to put your legs up, lay down, it's okay. It's a bit of a formal setting here. We can be relaxed about it, too. I'm co-teaching a class right now, actually, on work as our Zen practice or extending our practice off the cushion into our work life.

[03:23]

And I was thinking the other day, I was off the cushion, reminded me of when my wife, Samantha, and I were traveling in Nepal a few years ago, maybe 10 years ago. We were traveling from Pokhara to Kathmandu. And we had to go to the edge of town to catch a bus, a big bus that was going to take us on the... kind of one all-day trip over the mountains to Kathmandu Valley. And we were told that that bus over there was ours. It was kind of a field, you know, it wasn't really, things weren't really set up. There were like cars and there were some buses over there. And it said... that one over there is yours. And for anybody who's been to Nepal, you know that all the buses are brightly colored and they're painted and they're all shiny metal with lots of lights and sometimes words written on them.

[04:36]

So this bus, this particular bus, when we, like, is it that bus? I think it's that bus. And we looked at it and on these buses, big letters on the front of the bus. It said, Off-Road Express. So, actually, we did have to go off-road a few times on the way there. So, I was thinking maybe I would get a t-shirt Off-The-Cushion Express for me. I'd wear those. So basically today, I'd like to share with you my practice of how I'm able to take my practice off the cushion and into my life, extend it. Because I think that this is, Suzuki Roshi was the founder of Zen Center, the Japanese priest who came to America in the late 50s.

[05:52]

and started Zen Center in the early 60s, very early 60s. But I saw a picture the other day, and here, I think the picture was taken about 1961, 62, and there is a row of what look like middle-aged women in their kind of work outfits of women circa 1962, you know, little dresses, and their hair was very curled and lipstick and makeup on, and they're sitting there, and there's a row of them, and then behind them, kind of out of focus, is Suzuki Roshi walking with this big stick in his traditional robes, and he's very serious, you know, walking behind these women who are just sitting there with their eyes in zazen. So what must that have been like for this person coming from a very traditional Buddhist culture and suddenly he's in the room, he's just with whoever shows up.

[07:11]

These weren't monastic monks and he had to be just ready for that. Okay. Who's going to show up today, and where are they coming from? I mean, just like today. So what I've found particularly helpful in my project to extend my practice, which sometimes looks pretty formal and traditional, to extend that into every moment of my day and all the people that I have to meet and the situations that I have to encounter that are probably not so different from the people you have to meet every day and the situations that you have to encounter. So I would like to share with you maybe how I've been able to do that, and maybe that would be helpful. So what I started doing,

[08:16]

probably about 15 years ago is actually I picked up a very traditional Buddhist technique to do this. This is not my own invention here. But there's a traditional Buddhist technique of taking a few words like a phrase. and repeating that phrase over and over and over again. Probably the most famous one of these is O Mani Padme Hum, as a mantra. O Mani Padme Hum, O Mani Padme Hum. And people throughout Tibet and Northern India Everywhere you go.

[09:17]

People walking around the stupa all day long. But it also can function as a kind of a few words put together can function as something like a mantra or an expression of a vow or an intention But the word I really like, or what I really like to call these, is a Dharma slogan. I grew up in the late 50s and early 60s as a kid, so I'm fascinated with the Mad Men series. But I was always interested in advertising, and I spent a lot of time in front of the TV as a kid. So...

[10:19]

as you can imagine, I cannot look or touch an M&M now without thinking, melts in your mouth, not in your hands, you know? Or sometimes I think, I think actually I ended up in San Francisco because I saw that commercial, the Rice-A-Roni commercial, like a million times. Rice-A-Roni, the San Francisco tree. I mean, it's in my DNA. Right. So when we put together words, I mean, we can study all kinds of Buddhist texts, but it's sometimes very difficult to apply that to our lives. But actually, when we put together some words in a way that we can actually start to keep with us,

[11:21]

and use, carry along with us, bring into the situations of our life, then we have a chance. We have a chance to understand some of these things, which are oftentimes not so easy to understand. Emptiness. So I started this practice at Tazahara. I was a new student and I heard what is called the Metta Sutta. And so I kind of created a little variation for myself and it goes something like this. May all beings be happy, healthy, peaceful, and free from suffering. Simple. And I started repeating that to myself. May all beings be happy, healthy, peaceful, and free from suffering. I would walk up the road.

[12:23]

I'd say it to myself with every breath. May all beings be happy, healthy, peaceful, and free from suffering. May all beings be happy. When I was just offering the incense, automatically it came to me. May all beings be happy, healthy, peaceful, and free from suffering. And I found that as I did that, I started to actually wish that all beings were happy, healthy, peaceful, and free from suffering in a way that I hadn't before. And even in difficult situations, I would say that may all beings be happy, healthy, peaceful, and free from suffering, even this person right here. May he be happy, healthy, peaceful, and free from suffering. He's driving me crazy. But I still wish for her to be happy, healthy, peaceful, and free from suffering.

[13:27]

So now I'm always looking for slogans. I'm always, that's what I do. And they come, they just come from everywhere. Sometimes it's in a traditional Zen teaching, you know, the 13th century old teaching from Dogen, the founder of Soto Zen. Like a moon reflected in the water, what pleasure is there here? In the kitchen at Tassajara, above the dish washing area, there's a picture. And it's a couple, it's like a little Japanese sumi paint, a very small picture, a couple of fish. And underneath it, it says, what pleasure is there here? And I spent hundreds of hours at that dish sink saying to myself, what pleasure is there here? And it helped me a lot, actually. And the dishes were piled up like this.

[14:33]

It helped me a lot. Sometimes it comes from a teacher. Somebody will actually give you, or a friend, somebody will give you a good phrase, a good slogan. One time I went in, I sat down for a practice discussion with my teacher. And I said, he said, how are you doing? I said, I am so irritated right now. I can hardly stand it. And he looked at me. And he didn't say anything. And he just looked at me. And I looked at him. And some time went by, maybe a minute, maybe two. And then he asked me, well, how is it now? And I said, not so bad.

[15:36]

Better. Better, thank you. Thank you for asking. So he gave that to me. He gave that slogan to me in that spot, on that spot. I could use that any time of the day after that. How is it now? And I could wait around for 30 seconds, and then I could ask myself again, how is it now? And that was a big teaching for me, because it changes. Thank God. Thank Buddha. Sometimes they come from ceremonies. We do a full moon ceremony. here, Ryaka Fusatsu ceremony here every month, and one of the things we chant three times is, Dharma gates are boundless, I vow to enter them.

[16:45]

That's a great slogan. I did that for a good two years. I vow to enter them. I was in a restaurant the other day, and somebody came up to me, and they tried to give me a slogan, but I didn't pick it up. It was something like, you are fabulous. And you probably know the restaurant I'm talking about. You know, I mean... For some people, that's probably a really good slogan. They need that slogan. They need to hear that slogan like 50 times a day. You are fabulous. You're the best. I'll let somebody else have that one.

[17:45]

I don't really need that one. And then a couple years ago, I was studying Suzuki Roshi, as I do, and I was reading along, and all of a sudden, I was reading, and I read, to be ready to accept everything as it comes, one thing after another is Buddha's activity. And I was reading, just reading, continuing to read on, and I thought, oh, wait a minute. I think I just read a slogan. And probably anything that ends with is Buddha's activity has the makings of a slogan. Suzuki Roshi said it. So I went back to be ready to accept everything as it comes. One thing after another is Buddha's activity.

[18:47]

So this has been a slogan for me for probably three years now. A good three years. And it's a very helpful one for me. And if anybody here wants to use it, you can use it too. How I use it is I just like the rice-a-roni treat, I just try to bring it into my body and bring it up throughout the day. As I'm walking across the street to my office, as I'm sitting in a meeting, as I'm about ready to make a call, to be ready to accept everything as it comes, one thing after another is Buddha's activity.

[19:50]

For me, Robert, are you ready to accept everything as it comes? One thing after another. So I repeat this all through the day. And it orients my mind in some way. It reminds me of my deeper intention to practice. It shapes my view of what's possible in that moment, in that situation. So I'd like to take just a couple minutes to because I've found this very valuable, I'd like to take a couple minutes to kind of unpack this particular slogan with you.

[21:03]

Explore it just a little bit. And if anybody has any questions while we're going along, feel free to raise your hand. So, to be ready. This sounds like just, okay, Ramping up, getting into it, you know, okay, sure, to be ready. I mean, what's not to be ready for? But the fact is, we're usually not ready. We may be ready for this, but we're not ready for this. oftentimes we think we're ready for something and then that which we weren't ready for actually shows up so to be ready this is actually the the what I see as the fundamental practice or purpose of our practice it's just to be ready

[22:16]

It's the reason why we sit down. It's the reason why we sit down in zazen every morning. It's to reconnect with being ready. Zazen is we sit down and it's a fundamentally kind of receptive posture. We get ourselves stable. kind of establish ourselves on the ground. We lift up, we put our hands together, we say, okay, I'm ready. And what we're ready for is our life. We sit down right in the middle of our life and we say, okay, I'm ready.

[23:21]

We let go of what we were worried about before we got there. We're not thinking about what's going to happen next, but we just sit down and say, right now, what's happening? I'm ready to see it. Show yourself to me. This is what we do in zazen, is we get ready. We get ready for the actual truth of our life to show itself to us. One of the best teachings... in all of Zen, that's also a decent slogan, is from Dogen.

[24:24]

And he says, to carry yourself forward and experience myriad things is delusion. To kind of like be on my own agenda and like, okay, this is what I'm ready for. I'm ready for you to be like this. and you better line up, you know? That's delusion. And the second part of his phrase is, so the first part, to carry yourself forward and experience myriad things is delusion. To allow the myriad things to come forward and experience themselves is awakening. If we're ready, not for things on our own terms, but just for things as they appear, that's a very different path.

[25:33]

That's a very different practice. And that's the proposition in Zen practice, is that we could actually be ready for things as they are, instead of things as we want them to be. So then it starts to get actually a little bit difficult. To be ready to accept. And maybe that seems easy when we're just sitting on our cushion You know, sure, I can accept that. But what does this mean? This is actually the key word, I think, in the whole phrase. This is the pivot point, the verb, to be ready to accept. I was, my, Samantha, my wife Samantha and I were teaching some

[26:44]

some zen and yoga retreats at Tazahara last summer. And I said, and she said, well, what are you going to talk about? I said, well, I'm going to talk about my slogan, to be ready to accept everything as it comes to you. And she says, are you sure? Are you sure about that, the accept part? You know, I don't think, I don't know if that works, you know, for a lot of people. I said, well, what do you mean? She said, well, like, it's kind of like too much, you know? I mean, does it mean, like, I have to accept what you say? Does it mean, like, even if... It sounds a little passive, maybe. Does it mean, like, everything's okay? And, you know, that I don't get to decide? Does it mean, like, anything is... Everything is right and nothing's wrong? What... And the other day somebody said, well, I think that will be very difficult in the work environment to be ready to accept everything as it comes.

[28:02]

But I've actually found it extremely helpful in the work environment. And here's why. Because if I'm just accepting everything, I'm just, I'm not, out there trying to fend it off before it gets to me it just comes and in a way that accepting is just merely meeting it's just acknowledging somebody comes in and says i think we should do this i don't have to say great idea i can actually disagree but I can still accept them as who they are, as what they have to offer with their good intention. I can accept that completely. And they can feel like I accepted them completely too.

[29:07]

Now, I'm not saying I'm always successful in this, but this is my intention, you know, to accept, to not reject from God. from before something even starts to happen. So to allow it to come forward, to allow myself to receive it, to meet it, to engage with it. When I was on the kitchen, I was a fairly new student on the kitchen crew at Tassajara, and I worked underneath a Tenzo, who was a bit of a, a fierce guy. And so people come down for the practice period, and there's like 50 people there. And they can only eat these out of three bowls. And we eat all the meals in the zendo.

[30:09]

And you just eat what you're given, basically. So somebody comes down and they can't eat wheat or they can't eat dairy or they can't... I mean, these might be serious things. They can't eat beans. So his whole strategy there was just to be so fierce and so... to meet those situations with such energy and... and almost anger, that he would keep them in their place. And then they wouldn't, you know, because if he didn't, everybody could come wanting, you know, who knows what they're going to want. They're going to want, you know, extra sour cream. They're going to want on their beans. They're going to want, you know, maybe some, you know, less spicy or more salt, or they're going to want, who knows.

[31:13]

but we've got to keep them under control out there. So anybody who would show up and say, well, I want to talk to you about the diet, he would be, what do you want? What do you want? And it kind of worked. It kind of worked. I mean, people were scared to death of him and were not going to go ask for anything unless they were actually maybe going to get sick. And even then they didn't want to ask for anything. So I saw that, and I saw that he was trying to keep things under control because basically he had a good intention there. He wanted to serve the community. He wanted to make himself happy, and he wanted to make like the majority of people happy. And these other people that were just trying to screw things up, he wanted to basically try to erase them, make sure that that didn't really happen.

[32:25]

He wasn't ready. And he wasn't going to be ready for those things. But I saw how much suffering that caused him. And I saw that people were afraid of him. I saw that he wasn't happy. And so I became Tenzo after him. And I tried a different strategy. I said, anybody who has any food issues whatsoever, come talk to me. You want to talk about the food? Let's talk about it. And it was a bit of a risk, you know, but I thought, well... Maybe I can just trust people to find an appropriate... Maybe it's going to go crazy, but maybe not. So I sat back, made a couple announcements, sat back, and a couple people came.

[33:30]

And they had really serious food issues. And the rest of the people, they were just fine. I was a whole lot happier and they were happier, just knowing that they could, if they needed to, if they wanted to, that they could come talk to me and I was going to accept them for who they are, as somebody who needed to talk about something. So then, to be ready to accept everything as it comes one thing after another. So I think that actually Suzuki Roshi didn't just throw in everything because it sounded good. I think he actually meant everything. Not just to be ready to accept, you know, most things. Most things...

[34:32]

And there's going to be a little category, a little list of things over here that we're not going to accept. Because, you know, it's just not right. And actually, there are things in the world that are unacceptable. There are things in the world that we have to fight really hard and put our energy into making sure that they don't And we have to be fierce about that and honest. But that doesn't mean... But part of that fierceness and honesty and effort it takes to make sure that that doesn't happen again is accepting that it's happening. And as long as we pretend that something's not happening and we don't accept it, then we actually aren't going to be able to say that that's unacceptable.

[35:44]

We have to feel it. We have to know it. We have to actually accept it as true. Even if it's not my truth, it may be true. for other people. I'm sure it is. So this everything, to be ready to accept everything as it comes one thing after another, this everything could seem like it's coming from the outside. But actually, it's also coming from the inside. We have to be, and this is especially what we see when we actually sit down in zazen. Things come. Things arise. Our life kind of shows up.

[36:50]

And we can be continually surprised by what comes. And not so happy about it. So to be ready to accept that. To be ready to accept that I think this about you. To be ready to accept my own limitations. To be ready to accept my own delusion. To be ready to accept me. and everything about it. So sometimes I'll say this to myself, to be ready to accept everything, and I'll just stop there, everything, and that's all I need to hear.

[37:52]

Okay, I was just, now before I said that, I was just accepting part of this situation. But the request of life is that actually I'm gonna accept everything. I'm gonna meet everything. I'm gonna allow it to come here, I'm gonna meet it, and I'm not gonna turn away. Everything. one thing after another. I was practicing with this, and one time a group of us went downtown to Glide Memorial Church, and Cecil Williams was up there, and it was so fantastic, and I'm saying, to be ready to accept everything as it comes, one thing after another, and he says, all of a sudden he says, isn't it wonderful?

[39:16]

Isn't life beautiful? Everything is always new. And I was like, wow, I didn't expect to go downtown and get a Buddhist teaching. But these, actually these things aren't Buddhist teachings. These aren't, these aren't Buddhist teachings, they aren't Muslim teachings, they aren't Christian teachings. These are human teachings, right? These are teachings about how to be a human being and how things are. They happen to us one after another, one moment after another. That's our life. one moment after another. Are we going to be there moment after moment after moment for everything?

[40:24]

Buddhism has a lot to say about this kind of thing. This is like the essential teaching of Buddhism. Everything is always changing. But we don't have any purchase there. This is just fundamental life. Things are changing all the time. Everything is always new. Isn't it wonderful? Isn't that fantastic? That's good news because everything is already here anyways. It's not like we have to go out and look for each moment. It's just here. And if we accept it, we can see that it's actually new, this moment.

[41:43]

It's not. This is... how is it now? So the last little bit there is Buddha's activity. To be ready to accept everything as it comes one thing after another is Buddha's activity. So when we do this, When we practice in this way, this is actually not our normal life. This is not our, you know, because we have...

[42:45]

habits, set up patterns for ourself. When we meet somebody who actually accepts us completely, profoundly, truly, and we feel that, we're impressed by that because it doesn't happen that often. This has tremendous power. This has tremendous power to heal. It has tremendous power to support the relationships around us. I was reading the Diamond Sutra here the other day, And in the sutra, Subhuti asks the Buddha, what is the power of giving a gift without supporting that gift?

[44:01]

And the Buddha replies, is there much space in the East? And Subhuti says, yes, there is much space in the East. And he says... is it possible to measure the amount of space in the East? And Sabuti says, it's impossible. I don't think it's possible to measure the amount of space in the East. He says, so it is with the power of giving a gift without expectations. This is the kind of power, this is the kind of Buddha's activity to be ready to accept everything as it comes one thing after another. This has power for us in our own lives and it will impact others.

[45:08]

And it's impossible to measure that. We have to trust that. So I encourage you to actually, whether this is your first day at Zen Center or whether you've been coming for 30 years, that slogans, Dharma slogans, are great things to take up, to remember, to bring into your life, into your body, into your DNA, help shape your situations, especially off the cushion, where you need a lot of support because it's really challenging out there. So I encourage you to find one for yourself or just start looking.

[46:22]

They will appear. And if you want to, pick it up and use it and benefit from that. So I just wanted to say thank you very much for coming today, for your attention. I really felt it. I felt completely accepted. in so many ways, and I really appreciate it. It helped me a lot. So have a wonderful day. 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. Your financial support helps us to continue to offer the Dharma. For more information, please visit sfzc.org and click Giving.

[47:27]

May we fully enjoy the Dharma.

[47:30]

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