This podcast is offered by San Francisco Zen Center on the web at sfcc.org. Our public programs are made possible by donations from people like you. Good morning, and thank you for the invitation to be with you this morning. I was here 19 years ago, which sometimes seems like another lifetime. And I began that time by expressing my appreciation for the founder of the three practice centers, the abbot of Zen Center, it says here, San Francisco and Tassajara, Shunryu Suzuki Roshi, who was a great inspiration to my own teacher, Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche. They met in 1970, which was the first year that Trungpa Rinpoche was in North America.

[01:06]

And then he visited Tassahara and then city center as well. And when I say that we, and I'm speaking for my community, my sangha, that we are grateful to Suzuki Roshi, it's very practical to It's not just a vague emotional this or that. It's that literally the way we were trained was influenced by how Roshi had been training his students and continued training his students. So the first group meditation training that I did of a month was sitting and walking and sitting and walking meditation from seven in the morning until nine at night. And this was clearly inspired by what's done at Esseshin. And then eventually in our community, Kobanchino Roshi introduced oryoki to us. And that continues to this day that in our long practice periods we eat oryoki style.

[02:09]

And there are other things. Our way of doing walking meditation, Kobanchino Roshi introduced our community to the 20th Shibata Kanjuro sensei who teaches Kyudo, or he passed away a few years ago, the Japanese archery, which Komachino Roshi, I think, had trained at Komazawa University in that. So there are just a number of ways that our practice and our training was influenced by Zen tradition and specifically Suzuki Roshi and his way of training his students. So it's a gift that you've given us that is unspeakable in some way. Literally, you included us in the family of the Mahayana way of the Buddha and the way of the Bodhisattva. So I'm very grateful to be here and express that on behalf of my community and generations of practitioners who

[03:17]

I thought I would say something about Trungpa Rinpoche and Suzuki Roshi, because people sometimes ask me, you know, do you have a sense of what their friendship was like or anything? And I have just something that he wrote after Roshi died in 1971, and I thought I would just read that, the words of what he said. It's called Suzuki Roshi, a recollection of Buddha, Dharma, Sangha. So here, every day in your practice, you commit to the three jewels. You take the vow of following the way of the Buddha, engaging the practice of the Dharma in a community called Sangha. So he calls it a recollection of Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha. And I'll just read it. You can see it's personal, but also the fact that he gives that title to me suggests that it was something more than just a personal friendship. that he was just saying, I liked Suzuki Roshi as my friend.

[04:24]

So here's what he says. This is Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche. The venerable Shunryu Suzuki Roshi, founder and abbot of Zen Center, San Francisco and Tassajara, California, died on December 7th, 1971. He taught on the west coast of the United States. Personal contact with him and exposure to his written works inspired thousands of people to a living experience of Buddhism. The style of his teaching was direct, thorough, and without ambition. His way of working with students transcended cultural barriers, as well as any others, reflecting his real being. The Roshi's style shines through as part of the living lineage of Dogen Zenji. It is direct experience or living Zen.

[05:29]

His quality of not dwelling on any particular trip provided an extraordinary situation in contrast to the militancy of American Zen. At Tassajara, In June 1970, I first met the Roshi, an old man with a piercing look, quite ignoring the usual normal Japanese diplomacy. All his gestures and communications were naked and to the point, as though you were dealing with the burning tip of an incense stick. At the same time, this was by no means irritating, for whatever happened around the situation was quite accommodating. He was very earthy, so much so that it aroused nostalgia for the past when I was in Tibet working with my teacher.

[06:37]

Roshi was my accidental father. presented as a surprise from America, the land of confusion. It was amazing that such a compassionate person existed in the midst of so much aggression and passion. I thought to talk some about some of the words that are important both in this tradition and in the tradition that I'm trained in. Scholars call the Tibetan tradition Indo-Tibetan Buddhism. The Indo meaning that it came from India. I think in one of your chants, does it say here four countries? Is that right? I'm guessing that means India, China, Japan, and now the United States.

[07:42]

In our own case, India to Tibet, and then by way of Oxford University to the United States. Pham Pramiche got a scholarship to Oxford and studied there for a few years before establishing a center in Scotland and then coming to North America, Canada, and then Vermont. So the teachings of the Buddha handed down to us for this long, long time are there in words and they're there beyond the words. They're there in gesture. When Trungpa Rinpoche says his experience of communicating with Suzuki Roshi, that it was like dealing with the hot tip of a burning stick of incense, he doesn't just mean what Roshi said, the words, the nouns and verbs and vocabulary. He means the presence

[08:44]

of the person was so direct and so simple and so ordinary in a certain way. And yet he remarks on how extraordinary such ordinariness could be. Some of Roshi's students talk about the way that Roshi entered the zendo, the way he put on his sandals and so forth. So the teaching, particularly in this tradition of Zen, is beyond words. It's a transmission passed on Outside scripture, it's sometimes said, the origin, at least in one account, is that the Buddha once held up a flower and that Mahakasyapa smiled, and that that was the beginning of the Chan and Zen tradition. But equally, the words of the Buddha and the words of our teachers are very important to us. We remember the words that our teacher said at a particular moment. that were important to us, encouraging us in kindness, encouraging us in patience.

[09:48]

We remember the words. And in the tradition I'm trained in, we use the Indian word Buddha Vachana, which literally means Buddha word. So the chant books that we were using yesterday, we don't place those on the floor. That's a sign of respect. That's our decorum, so to speak, that you just... If someone does that by mistake, that's their first time sitting, someone sort of, you know, says, well, our custom here. And that has to do with the respect for the words, that the words of the Buddha and the words of our teachers in our lineage have inspired people just like ourselves, ordinary human beings, into wakefulness. So those words are regarded as having a potency, a power, and a depth that can be uncovered. released in a way that's strengthening and softening to us. So the words are very important in the tradition of the Buddha Dharma, we call it, the teachings of the Buddha.

[10:55]

We have the sutras, for instance, which you chant in the morning here, and we also inherited that, and we chant the Heart Sutra as well at the beginning of our practice day. So the words of the Buddha are regarded as, you could say, sacred, They're so meaningful. The words of our teachers. There's a famous Tibetan text called The Words of My Teacher that's been translated into English and people study that. So I thought to just go over five key words, so to speak. And is there anyone here for the first time this morning? I should. Oh, good. Oh, welcome. In particular, welcome. Yes, you're welcome. So for some of you, this may be the first time hearing some of these words, and for others of you, literally decades that you've been coming here and being here and sharing your presence and being part of this community.

[11:56]

Which really, by the way, as an outsider, it feels like a community. It really does. It feels like a Sangha. And there's a taste of that. I don't know what the exact words would be, but that in itself is inspiring, that a community has been established here of practitioners and people who aspire to a way of life based on gentleness and compassion, and that that's continued now these, is it 60-something years? Yeah, something. That's impressive in itself, and that's inspiring to me. Our community has its difficulties in the last five, six years in particular. And so I hope that we can also find our way and continue the way of the Buddha, the way of Bodhisattva, we say. So the five words, I'll just name them and then go through them. And when we get to the last one, you'll know that it's coming to an end.

[12:59]

The five words are beginner's mind, which the Tanto Tim Wicks mentioned, this is Beginner's Mind Temple. Is that what you say? Beginner's Mind Temple, it's the name. So, Beginner's Mind is the first word. And then there's this term, Practice Realization. It's a term from Dogen Zenji, Chong Bramche mentions Suzuki Roshi as passing on that lineage of Dogen. So, Practice Realization. Then, in the book, Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind, there's a phrase, to practice with no gaining idea. So I thought we could just consider, what does that mean to engage with no gaining idea? Most things we do are for gain. You'll get something if you do that, but what would it be to engage something with no gaining idea? And then the last two, I have an old copy of the Wind Bell, in which Roshi uses a phrase

[14:04]

Buddha Buddha Buddha and I wonder what that means and so I thought I'd read it aloud and maybe you can help me with what he means there Buddha Buddha Buddha and then the last one is a saying from a contemporary Zen teacher grief is a Buddha grief is a Buddha what would that mean grief could be a Buddha so those are the five Beginner's mind, which sometimes gets talked about as though it literally means the mind that you had when you were beginning to sit meditation, let's say, to sit zazen, whenever that was, a few months ago, a few years ago, a few decades ago. But it doesn't seem like it really literally means that you could...

[15:08]

go back or that you're trying to go back to something that was there when you were quote literally a beginner that to me seems to go against the Buddha's teaching of impermanence which is one of the most important teachings of the Buddha yes that everything changes everything that is born we who are born will die that that's the nature of where we are impermanence So to try and go back to and find, oh, when I was a beginner, I'm going to roll the tape back and somehow, that doesn't seem to me what that means, is that it is trying to go against time and return to something in the past. I once heard a somewhat well-known meditation teacher, I lived across the bay in Oakland when I was in graduate school, and the teacher admitted to a group that... they didn't want to buy a book called Zen Mind Beginner's Mind because they didn't want to be a beginner.

[16:18]

So there's that slight sense that, oh, beginners, you know, that's not quite as good as not beginner or older or elder or whatever. And admittedly, there are all those. But I don't think it means something that's less than, right? The phrase is, in the beginner's mind, There are many possibilities. In the expert mind, there are few. So we're not talking about something that has a beginning, a mind with a beginning, a middle mind, and an end mind. That's the expert version. We're talking about some quality of mind and of being that in the Tibetan tradition we would say is without beginning and without end. So I thought that's what I would do with each of the terms. They're all terms from the Zen tradition. And I thought that as your guest, maybe I would say what, how in the tradition I'm trained in, what we would say about that.

[17:29]

Sort of like when you ring one gong and then there's another gong that answers. I thought I would ring the gong from the Indo-Tibetan way. So our phrase would be, there is a wisdom that is without beginning and without end. It doesn't start and then grow up, teenager, adolescent, young adult, and then aging and die. It's not like that. In a sense, it's always fresh. You could almost say innocent. innocent, which I think the roots of that word are literally not to know. The expert knows a lot. At a glance, already knows, oh, that's what that is. That's who this is. This is who I am. But is there some way of knowing that doesn't have a beginning? It's not a matter of expertise or getting better at it.

[18:29]

It's there from the beginning, which means it's there in the middle. and it will be there at the end. It's without beginning or end. Everything that has a beginning will have an end. It eventually falls apart. The archaeology of previous lifetimes and civilizations from the past, everything falls apart. But is there some aspect of our being that doesn't start and stop? doesn't begin or end. And what is that? What might that be? Would it be possible to feel that and become familiar with that and know that without conceptualizing of, oh, that's it. I got the answer now. That's what they're pointing at. Because if we do that, we've put it into a box and

[19:32]

We've made it into something that began at a certain day, a certain time and a certain experience, and we've kind of captured it and tried to freeze it. And so this isn't like that. This is something open and flowing without a beginning, and it doesn't end just by hearing that sound. It's not interrupted by anything. It includes everything. So it's a little bit mysterious what this... I mean, we read that title, Beginner's Mind, and we might think, I like that, or I don't like that, or I don't want to be a beginner, or what would it be to be a beginner one's whole life throughout one's practice, right? Roshi says it's the secret of practice. It's beginner's mind. So in Tibetan tradition, I think we'd say, not only can you not get it, it's not a thing that you sometimes have and sometimes don't have, You couldn't throw it away even if you tried.

[20:32]

It's not like that. We say without beginning and without end. It doesn't end. It's not a thing. It's not fixed. So the second one, the second term, the second word I was going to talk about is practice realization. And we have the same question is that usually... we do practice, and we might think, well, that leads to somewhere else called realization. But the phrase from Dogen, practice realization, is that when we engage a practice, it's not that it leads to something else, it's that that engagement with practice at that very moment of engagement is realization. So realization isn't later, like a carrot that's, you know, pulling a donkey to get somewhere else. Realization is in this practice, to engage the practice here, to engage the practice in our everyday life.

[21:39]

That is what we're calling realization in this very moment. Suzuki Roshi says at the beginning of the book Zen Mind, it is wisdom which is seeking wisdom. So that's the same as the without beginning or end. Even our interest in being here this morning for first time or thousandth time, that very interest is itself this wisdom without beginning or end. It is a practice to come and be here in community with each other. And that very practice is realization. That is it. It's not that that leads to something else. Trungpa Rinpoche has a book called The Path is the Goal. And I have a somewhat old copy, but I wanted to bring it along because of that title. The Path is the Goal. A Basic Handbook of Buddhist Meditation is the subtitle.

[22:40]

I think that means something like, again, I'm trying to sound the gong from the tradition, our tradition, that the path, engaging the path, is... The fruition, the goal is realization. Not that the path has to gain something or get to something other. The path is leading us into where we are, where we actually are in this moment. Leading us here in that way. So then the third one, no gaining idea. Suzuki Roshi says this a number of times in Zen Mind Beginner's Mind to practice with no gaining idea. He says later teachers have sometimes emphasized a particular stage, like in the ox herding pictures. Oh, I'm trying to get to five or seven or whatever. But he said this is actually a misunderstanding. It's not about gaining something special later. So to sit, to practice, to serve, to offer, to be generous, to be patient without the idea that, oh,

[23:50]

I will get something from this. I'll get some likes or I'll get some approval or I'll acquire something. If this wisdom is without beginning or end, if practice and engaging is realization, then there's no need to get something not here. In fact, that very gesture of trying to get may miss what's here already. There's one Tibetan teacher who sometimes asks students, how far do your fingers have to go to touch space? In the same way that Dogen talks about time, time is very important, being time, time being. In the Tibetan tradition, there's a lot of emphasis on space. Interestingly enough, there's even a great teacher called Great Space. That's what the name means, Longchen, Great Space Person, or... Anne Klein, scholar, translates it, great expanse.

[24:51]

So this Tibetan teacher's question is, how far do your fingers have to go to touch space? If we feel that space is out there, I need to gain space or get space. And the reason why space is an interesting word is space isn't a thing. It's not a delimited, defined, how much space do you have? How much space do I have? It's not that kind of thing. So the very effort to gain may miss what's already here. Trungpa Rinpoche's first book in North America is called Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism. You may have heard of that. It's 50 years old now. Spiritual materialism was a topic that in his early days in this country he's talked about quite a lot. spiritual materialism is practicing trying to gain something spiritually it's based on materialism the materialistic outlook he once says seems to be dominant dominating maybe it has to do with global capitalism maybe it has to do with all kinds of things but there's this sense that something is missing there's a lack and if I get something or do something add something to it

[26:18]

then that lack will be filled. But the thing about that habit of looking outside ourselves or even looking for a particular experience inside ourselves is that habit is endless. That could just go on, right? Because if we get one of those, then we need two, then there's an upgrade, you know, iPhone, whatever. The materialistic practice It's not just an outlook, but the materialistic practice of getting, acquiring, getting and spending, it says in an English poem. Getting, always trying to get something more, else, other. This in itself is suffering. Just that constant anxiety and how will I get another. So to sit with no gaining idea, It's such a liberating offer.

[27:19]

It's really literally offering us a kind of freedom. Oh, just to let be as it is, as we are. That in itself is an openness, is a freedom, is a fullness that there's nothing that we could get that will compare to that. It's a... that which we've been seeking may already be here with us. The first of the ox herding images in Zen is seeking, looking for the ox. And we might think, well, that's a mistake, right? The ox isn't elsewhere. But in the commentary that Trungpa Rinpoche did on the ox herding, he said, even that dissatisfaction is a sign of our wisdom nature. It is Buddha nature that is seeking to wake up. So even that dissatisfaction It's the beginning of insight. I want to read from Suzuki Roshi for the fourth one.

[28:32]

Buddha, Buddha, Buddha. It's a very old copy of a magazine called Wind Bell. Do you still... Are there still... No more. Ah, impermanence, huh? This says, lecture by Shunryu Suzuki Roshi. Following lecture was given at Zen Mountain Center in July 1968. Is that 40, 50, 56 years? Ah, 56 years ago. Okay. So Suzuki Roshi said, I want to explain shikantaza, what it means just to sit. So that's at least one translation of shikantaza, just to sit or just sitting. A monk said to a Zen teacher, it is very hot. How is it possible to sit somewhere where there is no hot or no cold weather? The teacher answered, when it is hot, you should be hot, Buddha.

[29:38]

When it is cold, you should be cold, Buddha. And then Suzuki Roshi said, this is Dogen Zenji's understanding of the story. Dogen was very direct when he said, when it is hot, you should be hot Buddha. When it is cold, you should be cold Buddha. That is what Shikantaza, just to sit, means. And here comes the phrase. When your practice is not good, you are poor Buddha. When your practice is good, You are good Buddha. And poor and good are Buddhas themselves. Poor is Buddha, and good is Buddha, and you are Buddha also. Whatever you think or say, every word becomes Buddha. I am Buddha. I is Buddha, and am is Buddha, and Buddha is Buddha. Buddha, Buddha, Buddha, Buddha.

[30:42]

Buddha whatever you say then there are no problems Buddha [...] there is no need to translate it into English no need to be bothered with fancy explanations of Buddhism everything is Buddha sitting is Buddha lying down is Buddha each word is Buddha if you say Buddha Buddha Buddha Buddha, that is our way. That is Shikantaza. When you practice Zazen, sitting meditation, with this understanding, that is true Zazen. And then Roshi says, even though we say just to sit, to understand this is rather difficult, and that may be why Dogen Zenji left us so many teachings. So I read that because I want to admit that I don't know if I know what it means that everything is Buddha.

[31:47]

I don't think that to me everything seems like Buddha or is Buddha. I'm not even sure I know what that means, even aside from realizing it and living it out. It seems it would be a life of kind of fearlessness and courage and bravery that we could meet life with a sense of its basic but something basically wise in what unfolds in our life. And we could meet that. The wisdom in us and the wisdom in our life could meet each other directly. The hot tip of incense of what's occurring in our experience. But maybe that's... So maybe we're coming toward the end. Maybe you can help me with understanding. What does it mean, Buddha, Buddha, Buddha, Buddha? Roshi says, there's no need for fancy explanations, but I'll take even a simple explanation, whatever you could offer.

[32:49]

I'm trying to understand that because I have a sense that it's important. In the Indo-Tibetan tradition that Trungpa Mache transmitted to us, they speak of what's called sacred world. sacred world, that the world is inherently and basically sacred. And that to see that, they call sacred outlook. So sacred outlook sees sacred world. I suppose that's the world without so much of our opinions and judgments and concepts about. Again, maybe a kind of basic innocence. Just to direct this moment. Maybe that. Maybe. I don't know. I'm not sure. An all-pervasive sacredness, sacred outlook, sacred world. Last one, which in a way extends the

[34:04]

We say, well, some things seem basically good, some things seem Buddha, some things seem sacred, but many things doesn't seem that way. Or what would that mean? So there's this passage in something by a contemporary Zen teacher who says, Grief is a Buddha, not something to learn lessons from, but the way it is sometimes. the spirit and body of a season in the world, a season of the heart-mind. Grief is a Buddha. Joy is a Buddha. Anger is a Buddha. Peace is a Buddha. In the koans, the case studies, the records that Zen practitioners engage, in the koans, we're meant to become intimate with all the Buddhas, to climb into them, let them climb into us, burn them for warmth, make love with them, kill them, find one sitting in the center of the house.

[35:23]

You're not meant to cure the grief Buddha, nor it you. you're meant to find out what it is to be part of a season of your heart-mind, a season in the world that has been stained and died by grief, made holy by grief. 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 sfcc.org and click Giving. May we all fully enjoy the Dharma.

[36:16]

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