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. Good morning, everyone. Thank you very much for being here. whether you've come in person or joining online or sitting in the Dharma seat. Thank you for being here. It's so wonderful that we invest in our practice in our spiritual life or our basic being.

[01:04]

So it is actually very inspiring to see your effort, and I'm buoyed by it and encouraged by it. And I feel that you may be making a big mistake by listening to what I'm about to tell you. So this is a kind of ambivalence, you know, part of what I love about Zen, being a very ambivalent person myself, is that it's deeply ambivalent about itself. A lot of Zen people sit around saying, yeah, it's too bad about Zen. Really a shame. The whole book's about just reading Dogen Zenji, our great Soto Zen founder, the other day saying, yeah, Too bad we have Zen. You know, in part, I'll just spoil my talk here.

[02:08]

I want to share with you this deep and true and trustworthy practice of being yourself. What you were doing a moment ago and now sounds like something other than what you're doing right now. So it's like we have to say it and then we apologize that we said it because now there's going to be some new idea, some new way to be, some new effort to make, some new person to become who is fully themselves. So before, you know, the moment right before you enter, that's the moment of way-seeking mind. That's the pure practice moment. So we do all of this just maybe for that. So anyway, thank you again for coming. Thanks for your kind attention and indulgence.

[03:12]

I do want to share some teachings that I have found lately to be clarifying and inspiring. And I hope that they also might resonate a bit for you. So lately some of you know I've been studying this teaching and practice called Silent Illumination, which is this very poetic and also totally practical teaching and practice of being still and silent and open. And noticing that already right there, there's a kind of brightness of being something. So it's this beautiful practice that cuts through all of the stuff we think we need to do or get or be.

[04:18]

Practice of being still in the brightness of what we are. So the first lines of a poem on silent illumination by one of the Chinese founders of our lineage of Zen, Hongzhi Zhengjue, or we say Wanshi Shogaku in Japanese. His first line of his poem on silent illumination is, silent and serene, forgetting words, bright clarity appears before you. Silent and serene, forgetting words, bright clarity appears before you.

[05:19]

So unlike a lot of other Buddhist teachings or practices, This isn't about reaching for anything or trying to do anything or trying to get anything. It's just that right here, when we're still and open, our life is already complete. Our aliveness is complete and present and bright. Even on an objectively gloomy day, like today at foggy green gold nothing to do but be still and open to the brightness of what we are so it's about not making our being or our spiritual practice or our dharma practice into a kind of project or attainment

[06:25]

This teaching or practice of silent illumination is based on the wisdom, the principle that the Buddha nature or our wisdom and compassion and clarity is already complete right here. We don't need to go off somewhere to find it. We just stop and it's what is here. It's not something to lean towards or reach for or copy. But just when we stop manipulating or adding or subtracting, then the bright clarity appears before us. So when we practice in this way, and I do recommend it now and then, we're testing

[07:40]

For ourselves. We're exploring. Is it so? Is it true? It doesn't feel true. That my nature is complete. That wisdom and compassion. Are already perfected in myself. But there's this teaching. And now there's this practice of testing that. By becoming still. And open. To the brightness that's right here. It expresses that truth. And it tests it, gives us this opportunity to touch and deepen our faith in this principle that everything is already awake and connected and tender and loving. Does that sound familiar? So for some people maybe who come to a Zen center, this is like exactly what we want to hear.

[08:49]

This is a teaching that resonates to just stop and be what we already are. Why have we been running around trying to become better and brighter? So this teaching may be very resonant, silent illumination. And it may also feel a bit distressful. We may feel like an exception to this principle. That sounds good, but you don't know me. I'm a mess. And if I'm going to awaken or find compassion or become a Buddha, there's like a long list of things. that I need to work on, and I have notes from my friends and family and therapists telling you that there's a lot that I have to do that I have to really get on and do more of, actually, not just stop doing.

[09:54]

This is a problem, a wonderful problem that sincere people have and moral people, that we're not doing enough, we aren't enough, we aren't kind enough, we aren't awake enough. We aren't ourselves enough. We aren't authentic enough. And I know this firsthand because I talk to these very sincere people all the time who seem to have this feeling. And sadly, too often, I encourage them, like, yeah, I really should work on that. But then now and then, you know, Manjushri's sword, as we say, cuts through giving light, returning us to ourselves. The bright mirror reflects and we catch a glimpse of stillness and silence and putting it down.

[10:56]

Taking a break from fixing and doing and making and putting everything down. What's left? What's here when we put everything down? Good try. What do you say? What's here when you put everything down? he knows you forgetting words what's the breath the bright clarity appears before you just being this just being alive

[12:12]

So we touch this now and then and maybe deepen our faith that that wasn't so bad. I didn't become a worse person by temporarily suspending my project of becoming a better person. So feeling this great compassion for the suffering world, which for all of us in the Buddha Dharma is the root of our energy and effort and inspiration to practice feeling the suffering of the world feeling the suffering of ourselves the dis-ease and dissatisfaction all the way to the utter cruelty and violence and separation and confusion that's all around and through us Obviously, of course, that needs healing, and that's what our life is for.

[13:22]

What else would our life be for than to be part of that healing? So with this energy, we start on the path, and then we hear these stories of these wonderfully wise and compassionate people, and we try to be like them. So this is a stage or an aspect of practice where we're emulating. I remember speaking with a friend who's an artist who spoke of this phase of an artist's practice, emulating the greats. And what a relief when you drop that and just be yourself. So it's good, you know, to have some images of great, kind, wise people, and try that on, you know, try to be that. But as we deepen in our practice, it's not enough.

[14:32]

It's too thin. We hear the teachings of these great and wise teachers, in the Zen tradition at least, And what they say is don't copy me. They say to copy the wise, compassionate person is to flip the dregs of the tea instead of drink the tea for yourself. So it's a not copy. I think I'm practicing, but actually I'm trying to copy some idea I have of what somebody else's practice looks like. So not emulating, not copying, not attaining anything, but releasing, putting down, relinquishing. In other words, just being ourself. And right here, just being ourself is the place where there's brightness and wisdom and compassion that's deep and supported by all existence.

[15:41]

It's not made up put on but it's what we are so Suzuki Roshi talks a lot about this becoming yourself and I wanted to share some of his words that have been meaningful for me lately as I turn the teaching of silent illumination and visit Suzuki Roshi's teaching with that in mind, being yourself or becoming yourself. He says, as long as you seek for something, you will get the shadow of reality and not reality itself. As long as you seek for something, you will get the shadow of reality and not reality itself. Only when you do not seek for anything will you find it, and only when you do not strive for enlightenment will you have it.

[16:50]

Because you try to get something, you lose it. So we say just to sit, and this just directly points out liberation. You only lose your reality because you try to be something else. Do you understand? I should be just I. Then I have liberation, enlightenment. I am not caught. I am not a ghost. I exist here. I am Buddha. So I feel that's Suzuki Roshi expressing silent illumination. Just to sit. want to take a minute with this line you know many of us in zen are ambivalent and um maybe a bit jaded or cynical at times so i wonder how this line sounds to you only when you do not seek for anything will you find it and only when you do not strive for enlightenment will you have it

[18:17]

I really have to work to appreciate this line. I feel, I sometimes read Suzuki Roshi and I think, Suzuki Roshi, how did you get away with this stuff? This is like what's printed on the TVA. Only, can you imagine, I just feel this kind of envy, you know, it was like 1969 or whatever. Everybody's so open and he is so himself completely. And he says, you know, only when you do not seek for anything. Only when you do not strive for enlightenment. Yes, wow, thank you. And now it's just, well, audience has gotten much tougher. Only do not seek for enlightenment. And so this kind of, the cliche of it, and the sort of sticky sweetness of it, And the commonplaceness of it, this is like boilerplate wisdom, obscures that this is about my actual life and my actual suffering.

[19:27]

So I think the other, the way he says it in this other line is maybe more direct. Helps me kind of break through that cynicism to see that this is actually about what I need to do to stop being a ghost in my own life. He says, as long as you seek for something, you will get the shadow of reality and not reality itself. That feels a little closer for me. A little closer to the dis-ease or the dissatisfaction of my life. Don't feel quite here. I don't feel like it's quite enough or quite right. I'm quite awake or quite present. Like I'm missing something. Have that feeling? A bit like a shadow.

[20:28]

I know in my mind that this life is so precious and I know to be grateful. And there's something shadow-like. Something missing. Something not quite satisfying. That maybe, you know, any day now. I'll come to life. Or maybe, you know, looking at the picture. Thinking, oh, I was alive then. I have that feeling. Like either it's about to happen or it's past. So we have this feeling maybe of a kind of shadow-like being. Or anyway, if you do. then this teaching is pointing right to why we have that feeling. We feel that we're kind of a shadow or a ghost in our own life because we're reaching for something. That's the proposition at least.

[21:31]

As long as you seek for something, you will get the shadow of reality and not reality itself. He says, so we say just to sit, and this just directly points out liberation. You only lose your reality because you try to be something else. So to just completely be that shadow, just completely be that not quite right feeling, and there is the true reality of your life. become yourself just as you are. So another simpler way he puts it is our way of sitting is for you to become yourself.

[22:35]

Our way of sitting is for you to become yourself. So I read this Sentence in two ways. Our way of sitting is for you to become yourself. First to me means that the purpose of our sitting is to become ourself. And that's the ridiculous but also sort of compelling part of like, I'd like to be myself. So okay, do the sitting. The sitting is for the purpose of becoming yourself. Not to become a Buddha. not to become a wise and compassionate person, but to become yourself. Our way of sitting is so that you become yourself, so that you feel that relief and ease and spaciousness and clarity and confidence and humility of just being yourself. Our way of sitting is for you to become yourself.

[23:45]

Also to me means that the way we sit, it's like an instruction on technique almost. The way we sit is to be ourself. I haven't used this much as a meditation technique that I share with others. I'm trying it out here. Seems a little hard to get. sink your teeth into but you know follow your breath is a little easier to do but isn't that an interesting instruction to think of that as a meditation instruction you take your posture and then we say well what do I do now to meditate and the instruction is become yourself thank you I guess it feels like something. It feels like welcome completely this being.

[24:49]

Don't reach for anything else. So someone says, what do you do when you meditate? I just sit becoming myself. This is why the other centers are more popular. So I want to point out, so becoming yourself, I just want to talk a little bit about some things that I think becoming yourself does not mean because it's nearby some other ideas we have about ourself. I worry that we hear becoming ourself sounds like just be your idea of yourself. And that's like the opposite of what this teaching is. So one expression that comes up is the expression, you do you. You're familiar with this expression, you do you. It's kind of wonderful in a way, but I think it's maybe a little different, or at least the meaning I'll suggest for it today to highlight the distinction is that you do you has the feeling of, you know, don't really worry about, don't reflect on your life too much or worry about what others think.

[26:13]

Just sort of you do you, lean into your style and your quirks, and you just be you. So becoming yourself in this sense that Suzuki Roshi is teaching, in the sense of forgetting words, bright clarity appears before you, is nothing like find out your style and then stick to it. That's the right word. Just be yourself. You do you. So it's not about style or about who we think we are. And it's not about staying true or loyal up to some identity that we've created for ourselves or that others have given to us. Be yourself means, oh, I've always been, you know... the good person or the bad person or the funny person or the wise person.

[27:15]

So I guess be myself means just keep doing that. Cling to that for dear life. This identity that has some history, some cause that either we've cultivated for ourselves or for good or ill been given by others. So become yourself isn't so much about exerting some effort to fulfill your identity. Of course, we all have an identity. We have lots of identities. And that's our karmic self, our being in relation to each other, our being in history and society. And all of those identities are totally worthy of being seeing clearly and respecting and expressing and having kindness and compassion towards. But become yourself doesn't mean hold and reinforce through your conscious effort who you think you are.

[28:29]

And it definitely doesn't mean, you know, It's also not defensive. Like, don't blame me. I'm just being myself. The Zen center said, you should be yourself, and I'm being yourself. You're not allowed to be mad at me for what I just did or said. So this is not about defending ourself in some way. Does that make sense? It's an important point. I sometimes hear even Zen people say, well, you can't blame me. I'm just being myself. As opposed to saying, I'm so sorry. Which is a much better response. A much more authentic response. Much more like being yourself. So I would say become yourself means be what you are. Or become that you are.

[29:34]

Become the fact. Be completely the fact that you are. Just to be the life itself that you are. Be this. Just completely become and be this. Life itself. that you are here forgetting words forgetting all about everything so here's how um great contemporary soto zen teacher shohaku okamura roshi puts this

[30:38]

He says, in our zazen, so in our sitting practice, we let go of maps and sit on the real ground of reality with our whole body and mind. In zazen, we even let go of thoughts about the Buddhist teachings. As a karmic being, I am a Japanese Buddhist priest. My parents' son and my wife's husband, and my children's father. In Zazen, I sit facing the wall, letting go of all thoughts. I am not Japanese, not Buddhist, not a priest, not a son, not a husband, not a father. I am just who am. This who am is never grasped As an object. To see this.

[31:42]

Who am. Without grasping. Or without using concepts. Is manifesting wisdom. Just being present with. Who am. This wonderful expression. We live. You know. The basic factor of our life is this raw subjective feeling of being, you know, the one, you know, the one that you're having. That's the main, that's the thing happening. And yet we are just looking right past it all the time. And we imagine ourselves as an object. We are an object in the world, in the relative world where there's people and things. We are some kind of object that can be understood in relation to those things that has some characteristics. And when we even sit and breathe, we imagine we're imposing that objective part of who we are onto the experience of sitting.

[32:53]

This is, again, forgive the intrusion of the 1960s and 70s, but there's, you know, Douglas Harding, this having no head. maybe a topic for another talk. But in a way, that's a very direct expression of this way that we're imposing. We sit thinking of ourselves as someone with a head. He has this little, it's cute, you know, but it also is impactful. Where's your head when you're just sitting, facing the wall, breathing in and out? You're not exactly like the kind of person that you would see from the outside with a head and stuff. And yet as we sit, we're kind of imagining that person. It's strange. We're missing the actual subjective feeling of right now because we're imposing some imagination of what it looks like from the outside or what we are as an object as opposed to a subject, this self, this yourself. So I love Shohaku's expression.

[33:59]

He's not pushing away his identity. He's not denying or effacing or minimizing. He is Japanese and he is a Buddhist and he is a priest and a father and a son. He's honoring that truth, important, deeply consequential truth about who he is in the world of things and others. But in this immediate experience of himself, of his being, he is just this person It's just this, who am. So he says, forget all of these things that we are when we sit. And then we stand up again and we're totally open and engaged and curious about how that is to be who we are.

[35:00]

not turning away from any of it, but not losing this becoming of yourself, becoming the life that you are. And this is related to the kind of forgetting, the famous expression of not knowing who we are, being ourselves so fully that we don't know who that is. is Bodhidharma, the founder of Chan, or of Zen Buddhism in China. The emperor met Bodhidharma, this great Zen master, and said, who is standing in front of me? And Bodhidharma said, I don't know. Forgetting words, right, clarity, It's because he doesn't know who he is that he's just completely himself.

[36:12]

He's not, you know, knowing once we know who we are, then we fall into this problem of trying to make that same person for the next moment. But if we forget who we are, then we actually receive who we are. We receive our life as a gift in the next moment. What we are is this gift that we're receiving moment after moment. We just forget and then we breathe in and a life, a self, a being is received. So Bodhidharma says, I have no idea who I am. I am just completely here being this gift that's that's arising right now so i just wanted to point out this connection between the forgetting

[37:27]

and the being yourself. Forgetting yourself, forgetting who you are, is the way to become completely yourself, to be fully alive, to not be a ghost, to receive the gift that's coming. Suzuki Roshi says, When you practice forgetting yourself, forgetting where you are and how long you have been here. That's a nice, might be useful, late in a Dharma talk. Forget where you are and how long you have been here. Then your practice includes everything. Sweet. When you say, I practice Zazen at Zen Center, I and Zen Center are extra. you are limiting your practice by the idea of Zen Center or my practice.

[38:33]

When you say my practice, the practice is very small. When you say Zen Center, the practice is very limited. When you forget all about those kinds of ideas and just practice, then at that time your practice is perfect and includes everything, past, present, and future. That is the point of practice. To be our authentic self, to become our self completely, is to sit silent and still, forgetting everything, forgetting words, and seeing, receiving the gift that comes. This is the source of our wisdom and compassion in the world this is the source of our precept practice of our ethics the ethics that flow from becoming completely what you are and that you are which is what everything is and that everything is

[39:59]

We might say, I'm afraid that if I forget who I am and just be myself completely, stop trying to be something or someone in particular, stop trying to be something else, then I'll be hurting people. I have to make sure I don't hurt people by making sure that I be a good person. The Zen teaching is the best way to not hurt people is to be what you are, to be your livingness. and the compassion and the ethics, your action in the world will include everything and will flow from that basis. So we can test this. This is the proposition that this is a trustworthy way to be So I'll close with Suzuki Roshi again.

[41:05]

This is not some fancy teaching. No teaching could be more direct than just to sit. You cannot say anything about it, not even yes or no. This is not something you should believe in because I say so or because Buddha says so. This is the truth that is waiting for you to find it. It is the only way to attain renunciation without causing any problems for yourself or anyone. Just to be yourself is no problem whatsoever. This is what is meant by just to sit. Moment after moment, you will find your own way when you just sit, when you are simply you yourself. Thank you very much for your kind attention. Please try this practice of sitting still and being and becoming yourself in the brightness and as the brightness.

[42:24]

And if anything good comes of that, then that's offered to the benefit of everyone, which is what our practice is for. Thank you for listening to this podcast offered by the San Francisco Zen Center. 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. May we fully enjoy the Dharma.

[43:08]

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