This podcast is offered by the San Francisco Zen Center on the web at sfzc.org. Our public programs are made possible by donations from people like you. As I was standing outside as the bell was going, Arlene came in and said that she had gotten a call. from the folks in Santa Cruz and that the woman who's been the head of the Santa Cruz Zen Center, Catherine Thanis, just died. This is very sad news for all of us and perhaps especially for those of us who knew her and loved her. She was at Zen Center when I came in 1968.

[01:14]

I don't know when she had gotten to Zen Center, but she was always there. Not a flashy person. Not, wow, Catherine. She was just a steady, steady, steady on practitioner working with her life. devoting many years to service, to taking care of San Francisco Zen Center.

[02:14]

And then maybe, I was going to say 20 years, but it's hard to say these days. I count things in decades, you know, a couple of decades ago, you know, two, three, roughly, you know, a while ago. She was asked to be the head of the head teacher, guiding teacher at Santa Cruz. And she went down there and I believe really developed a very full Zen center down there. I've never visited, but I believe that so. and has left many students and disciples.

[03:22]

So I thought we would just sit for a minute or so silently in memory of Catherine after the Dharma talk, one of the traditional practices. that we have is to hit the large bell. So the large bell will be, you'll hear it sounding after the talk is over. 18 times? 108 times. There are 108 delusions, and we hit the bell for each one of them. And 108 moments in our life, and we hit the bell for each one of them. And 108 million things. And we hit the bell once for each of them. So it'll be hit 108 times after the Dharma talk. But now let's just sit. Even if you don't know her, that's okay.

[04:30]

Okay, let's just sit for a minute. Thank you.

[06:18]

So I'd like to speak this morning, as is often the case, I'd like to start with words of Suzuki Roshi, and I'd like to do that this morning, but first I want to mention Baltimore. Is there anyone here who hails from Baltimore. Not too many. One. So, a few nights ago, I was driving to the airport to pick up my wife, who was flying in, and I turned on the radio, as I am wont to do occasionally, while driving, and I tuned in to a program called State of the Reunion, which I had heard of the program, but I had never heard the program, State of the Reunion.

[07:30]

I don't actually know what the program is, but it seems like maybe they focus on a different part of the United States, each program. So this was about this particular hour-long program. was about Baltimore and Baltimoreans, people who live in Baltimore, which is a wonderful word to be able to say, Baltimorean. And the host of the program was saying, and I think it's true, that Baltimore has kind of not such a good reputation Lots of difficulty in the city of Baltimore. And then there was that TV program, The Wire, which kind of, you know, solidified Baltimore's not so good reputation. I'm sorry. So the reason this person had this program about Baltimore was to talk about the good things that were happening in various places.

[08:42]

unusual and good things happening in Baltimore, counter to its negative reputation. And part of that was talking with a woman who was retired. I don't remember what her job was, but she was retired from whatever her working life had been and had been a lifelong knitter. So she decided after... her retirement, what is the most unlikely place that I can bring my knitting to, my knitting practice? And she decided that jail was the place that she should go. And it took her many years to work with various authorities so that she could actually work with inmates. doing knitting.

[09:43]

And everyone told her, as you may be thinking at this moment, you know, prisoners in jail are not interested in knitting. You know, this is not a high priority for them, knitting. Do you know the name of the jail or penitentiary that's near Baltimore? I've forgotten. There's kind of a major one. I recognized it when the person said the name of it, like Joliet. It's not Joliet, but like Joliet State Penitentiary. It was something like that. And she said she, you know, for years now, she's been knitting with people who have been convicted of various felonies and, excuse me, major crimes. And she said, well, You know, it's understandable knitting is kind of Zen, she said.

[10:47]

And she may be part of the Baltimore Zen Center. She may be a Zen practitioner, but I don't think so. I think, you know, that name, Zen... is popular enough now, so it carries various connotations, and I was guessing that what she meant by saying that knitting is zen, it's kind of zen, I was guessing that what she meant was, well, it's calming, you know, you calm down when you practice zen, and you calm down when you knit. repetitive, boring. No, not boring. Zen practice can sometimes, to the untutored eye, it may look like boredom.

[11:54]

And so on. So I think that's what she meant. Like calm, concentrated, you know. The way you do when you knit. I don't know how to knit. And so on. But what I heard, which she may not be familiar with, was the Bodhisattva way. That's what I heard. I heard her practicing through her knitting with prisoners, bringing them some wonderful gift that everyone was convinced they were not interested in. The Bodhisattva way, and more specifically, two things that I hope to get to when I'm speaking. I'll just mention them now. But more specifically, embracement is one.

[13:03]

And the second one is... moon, moon in a weed. Which sounds rather enigmatic, but hopefully I'll clarify what I mean by that. So the words of Suzuki Roshi that I'd like to work from, begin from, are in Zen Mind Beginner's Mind, the 32nd talk in Zen Mind Beginner's Mind, the title of which is Calmness, toward the end of the book. Calmness. And Suzuki Roshi didn't title his talks.

[14:10]

I'm guessing that the People who edited Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind, Trudy Dixon and Richard Baker probably gave the talks their titles. But, you know, it makes sense as a title, calmness, because he does talk about calmness. But I think very characteristic of Suzuki Roshi's talks, even though he's talking about calmness, he's really talking about the entirety of of Zen practice, kind of focused through a certain lens. What is Zen practice? What is the feeling of it? What is the quality of it? also addressing the question that is paramount in our minds which is what good does it do me you know what is Zen practice and what is it going to do for me this is what we want to know so

[15:41]

Going back quite a ways to Bodhidharma and so on, the usual answer to that question, what is it going to do for me or what am I going to get out of it? What are you going to get out of it? The usual answer is nothing. That's the usual answer. As Norman Fisher used to say, maybe still does, Zen practice is a complete waste of time. And like on the 25th anniversary t-shirt of Green Gulch, on the back of the 25th anniversary t-shirt, it said, work hard, accomplish nothing. And my work, one kind of work that I do is as a psychotherapist.

[16:48]

And I've been doing that for about 20 years. And that was after about 20 years of practicing Zen kind of full-time practice. So I thought when I put out my shingle for psychotherapy, it could say, Steve Weintraub, Zen psychotherapy. No results. But I didn't think I'd get any business that way. No results. So, no results. or nothing, or complete waste of time, is kind of helpful. It kind of produces a good result, a good something, a good use of time.

[17:51]

In the sense that, well, first of all, it puts us on the right track, because otherwise we're in danger of trying to get something out of practice, trying to get something out of our practice. And this can easily devolve into what Katagiri Roshi used to call vending machine zen. Vending machine, maybe you get the idea already. Vending machine zen is when you, like a vending machine, you put in the, I was going to say a coin, but This is not coins anymore, right? You put in $2, right? And then you hear that vending machine noise and something comes out the bottom, right? A bottle of some liquid that we want. So then vending machines then is like that. You put in the effort, you know, you put in something and then you get enlightenment, you know, a bottle of enlightenment comes out the bottom.

[19:03]

Oh, it tastes good. Like that. So one useful way that complete waste of time is a good use of time is that it clarifies that as understandable as that may be, that we have that kind of idea of practice. And that's because we have that kind of idea about everything. As understandable as that may be, doesn't work that way. It's kind of going in the wrong direction. And the other way that nothing is something, is useful, is because nothing is valuable. Nothing is the way things are.

[20:07]

At the beginning of this Dharma talk of Suzuki Roshi's that was later entitled Calmness, he quotes a line from a Zen poem. The line from the Zen poem is, Because of the singing bird, I find the mountain calmness. And he comments that... Before something happens in the realm of calmness, we do not feel the calmness. Only when something happens within it do we find the calmness. Because of the singing bird, I find the mountain calmness. He also mentions what he says is a Japanese saying. For the moon... there is the cloud. For the flower, there is the wind.

[21:20]

And he comments on that and says, when we see a part of the moon covered by a cloud or a tree or a weed, we feel how round the moon is. When we see the clear moon without anything covering it, we do not feel that roundness the same way we do as when we see it through something else. Did you follow that? Does that make sense? And then a little bit later in the talk, the last thing I'm going to mention is a little bit later in the talk. He says, for Zen students, a weed, which for most people is completely useless, is a treasure.

[22:30]

With this attitude, whatever you do, life becomes an art. So I thought that sounded pretty good and I think we should try to figure that out so that our life will be like a, sounds very beautiful, you know, life will be an art. Our life will be like a beautiful piece of art. So what's remarkable about these little quotations where he's quoting the Zen poem about the singing bird and the mountain and the cloud or the weed, the tree and the mulan. What's remarkable about them is that we usually think of these things as being separate.

[23:37]

And not only separate, but in opposition to each other, against each other. We have to get rid of one of those to get the other one. We have to get rid of the sound in order to get the silence, the calmness of the mountain. We have to get rid of the cloud or the tree or the weed that's blocking our view in order to see the moon. But he's saying something way, way different than that. And I think what he's saying is, I could say, well, this is a Zen understanding of it. which is not only are they not separate, but they need each other. We actually need an obstruction to appreciate our free-flowing quality. We need the obstruction of the cloud. We need what gets in the way. He says, if you see the clear moon,

[24:41]

It doesn't feel as round as when you see it covered by something else. And the poem at the beginning is, because of the singing bird, I find the mountain calmness. Because of. We usually think in spite of. That's our usual way of understanding things. So there's one sense in which we can say what Suzuki Roshi is giving to us is how things that we think are separate and opposed, like knitting and felons, like life and death, like something and nothing, are not only not opposed, but they actually are together. They actually need each other. That's one way, for those of you familiar with the... I'm not going to go into this, but for those of you familiar with the technical terminology, that needing is called kai.

[25:55]

K-A-I. San-do-kai. Many, one, need. Many and one need each other. So one way to understand... what he's saying is this way that I just said about needing each other. Another way, another way is, another way to say it is, there is just one whole reality. There is just one whole reality called Catherine Thaniss is alive. Catherine Thaniss is no longer alive. Called singing bird, mountain calmness. Called so on and so forth.

[26:59]

Just one whole reality. We human beings, I don't know if any other creatures on the planet, have this capacity. Maybe some have a little bit of this capacity, but we've got this way gigantic capacity to create concepts. We create these concepts. And by virtue of these concepts, things get separated and distinguished and in opposition and blocking each other and so on. It's necessary for us to have these concepts. It's extremely useful, you know, to know the difference between a wall and a door. It's very, very useful to have a concept. One you walk through, one you lean on or whatever, you know.

[27:59]

Don't try to walk through the wall. That's very conceptual understanding, very useful. But Suzuki Roshi, when he's talking about because of the singing bird, we hear the mountain calmness because of the obstruction. We appreciate the fullness of the moon. He's not talking about conceptual understanding. He's talking about non-conceptual understanding, otherwise known as our experience. It's actually our experience all the time. Usually we can't see it because we're so full of concepts. which are very, the concepts are very connected to, I like this, I don't like this, I like walls, I don't like doors, I like life, I don't like death, I like this, I don't like that, I like moons, I don't like birds. Oh, I was going to say, you know, because of the singing bird, we hear the mountain calmness is a very poetic, it's a poem, you know. So I was reminded, for many years, I practiced at city center, you know, Zen center in the city.

[29:02]

And We'd be sitting in the morning and every same day every week, I don't remember what it was, because the Zendo is right on an alley, Lily Alley. They pick up the garbage. So you get this concert, you know, of garbage truck noises, you know, for about 15 minutes. You know. the way that garbage trucks make those kinds of noises, you know. Picking things up, you get the sense of heavy machinery, you know. Because of the garbage truck symphony, I hear the mountain calmness. It doesn't have to be poetic, you know. It doesn't have to be that way. So it's our conceptual understanding, very useful, very necessary, but in our practice we have the chance, maybe we could say, to go beyond our conceptual understanding.

[30:17]

It's not really beyond because it's actually home. It's actually our experience when our conceptual understandings are not so obstreperous and so, you know, We think that that's reality. It's, you know, like the classic difference, you know, you've heard, I'm sure, between a map and the territory, right? How different it is to look at a map of, you know, the California coast and to actually walk on the California coast. Very, very different. And the map is like a concept and walking is like our actual experience. But again, this applies. every moment, all the time, all the time. We have an actual experience that's not constricted by our conceptual understanding that's right there, here, for us. It's that, that's what Suzuki Roshi is addressing.

[31:25]

In that world, because of the mountain because of the singing bird, because of the garbage truck noise. I can appreciate the stillness of life. In that world, every something, every something that is a something, every something exists in the context of... is connected to, is attached to, is laminated to nothing. Zero. It's got to be. Got to be that way. So this kind of understanding then is an understanding that is encompassing, embracing.

[32:40]

There's a work of Dogen Zenji, who lived in the 13th century, who's a popular guy. And one of the things that he wrote, he wrote many fabulous things, and one of the things he wrote, the title of that is called Bodhisatta Shishobo in Japanese. Bodhisatta means bodhisattva, shi means four, shobo. So Kaz Tanahashi, who's a wonderful translator of Dogen texts, he translates this title as the four, the bodhisattva's four, methods of guidance. So he translates shobo as method of guidance. The Bodhisattva's four methods of guidance. And they are generosity, kind speech, beneficial action, and

[33:54]

Identity action. And I haven't studied identity action so much, but I think he might, so I'm not sure, but I think he might mean something that in modern parlance we would call empathetic action, empathy, where you identify with the other. So these are the four methods of guidance, the four tips. of our practice it's quite beautiful very moving to me that Dogen old Dogen way back there in 1241 or whenever he wrote it that he would name those four things being generous this is the method of guidance and it just it means method of guidance internal guiding ourselves how we guide ourselves and how we guide others. That's the Bodhisattvic aspect of guidance.

[35:00]

Giving to be generous and to speak kindly and to act beneficently and to act empathically. Wow. So these are the four methods of guidance. Now, Shohaku Okamura, is another contemporary Zen teacher. In fact, he is going to be leading at the end. I'll make an announcement about this at the end of the talk because he'll be doing something here at Green Gulch at the end of July. So I won't say anything about it now. But he also is a tremendous Dogen scholar. So he translates that same title, Bodhisatta Shishobo, as the Bodhisattvas for embracing actions.

[36:03]

Generosity, embracement. Kind speech, embracement. Beneficial action, embracement. He's not making this up. This is what Dogen wrote, okay? And identity, action, embracement. So this is the feeling of practice, I think, I feel. Embracing. Embracing ourselves, embracing others. embracing our experience, embracing what comes down the road. Dualities are dualities, but from the perspective of embracement, dualities are not dualities.

[37:19]

So we can see, because dualities are not dualities, we can imagine prisoners knitting. Our imagination is opened up. We can imagine how a weed and the moon are not, excuse me, inevitably in opposition. How a weed could be, begin to get the idea of how a weed could be a treasure from the point of view of our experience, our non-conceptual experience.

[38:36]

A month or two ago, I heard a song by Leonard Cohen. Do you know Leonard Cohen? The title of the song is A Thousand Kisses Deep. And the beginning of the song goes something like this. The ponies run. Life is young. The odds are there to beat. You win a while. And then it's done. Your little winning. He's such a depressing guy.

[40:06]

That's such a let it go to life. You win a while and then it's over. You're a little winning streak. That's very funny. And he always sings, you know, in this very somber, very low voice, you know, almost like he's talking. You win a while and then it's done, your little winning streak, and then you are summoned to meet invincible defeat. Another great phrase, invincible defeat. So our practice is... I think a wonderful gift, a wonderful treasure for us. And I think it's particularly a wonderful gift and a treasure and useful in its uselessness when it comes to things not going the way we would like them to.

[41:24]

When things don't go our way. when our little winning streak is over. And, you know, he's kind of depressing and wonderful, but it's true. It always is over, sooner or later. And if we focus on it not being over, I can't have it be over. I've got to make sure it's not over. I've got to keep that winning streak going. It's not going to work out so well. Things won't work out so well. You know, as Catherine would tell us, the winning streak is over soon, pretty soon. So what do we do in the face of that? How do we operate?

[42:27]

How do we live in the face of that? I think I feel that this understanding that is wide that is generous that embraces our life is a tremendous resource in living with tolerating at least tolerating that which is invincibly defeating. And of course we should enjoy our life as much as possible.

[43:33]

We should enjoy things and we enjoy the pleasure of our life. And the complement of that is that we should be ready. I don't know about should be ready. That's not exactly what I want to say. We have the chance to not be so narrowly confined in just what we like, in just what's good, in just things working out. That's what I mean about the resource the gift of practice it gives us some real really strong way of working with our life even when things don't work out even when things don't go the way we would like them to sooner or later So if we can practice, say it a different way, our practice is the practice of the moon in the weed.

[45:02]

A weed is a weed, and a weed also is the moon. Our practice is the practice of that. A weed is a weed, the moon is the moon, and a weed is the moon, and the moon is the weed. That's sandokai. Our practice is the recognition, the imbuement, that's not a word, but imbuing our life, living out that understanding, reminding ourselves of that understanding, knowing and acknowledging and recognizing that. not just in an intellectual way, not just as a concept, but to actually live that. When we can do that, when we can understand that understanding and live that understanding, then a weed is a treasure.

[46:08]

Because then it's not just a weed. The weed is a weed, but it's not just a weed anymore. It's not exactly a weed anymore. It's something else. If we can claim our birthright, claim our enlightenment right, claim the way things are, this does not occur someplace else. Thank you. Thank you for listening to this podcast offered by the San Francisco Zen Center.

[47:11]

Our programs are made possible by the donations we receive. Please help us to continue to realize and actualize the practice of giving. by offering your financial support. For more information, visit sfcc.org and click Giving. May we fully enjoy the Dharma.

[47:37]

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