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 by people like you. First Saturday of the month, so it's the kids program. Yay! So I'm going to start out with a couple of stories for the kids. Got a couple of stories. The first one may, I think, may possibly be the oldest joke in the world. I'm not sure, but I'm just thinking it might be the oldest joke in the world. Maybe the oldest joke in the world is . Maybe that's the oldest joke in the world. Still funny.

[01:01]

But the joke I wanted to share with you was about a king who's in his castle. And one day, a messenger comes running up into the king's court. He says, Your Majesty, Your Majesty, a ship has arrived in the harbor. It's a strange new animal that no one has ever seen before in its hold. It's called an elephant. Yeah. And the king, you know, he's a busy guy. He was far too busy to go and have a look at it himself. But, you know, he was curious to know what kind of beast this elephant could be. So he asked his wise men, his six wise men, who were court retainers, to go down and check out this beast, this elephant, and see what manner of beast it might be. But the wise men had had their heads poked into books for so long that they were pretty much blind, all of them.

[02:10]

They were as good as blind. Their eyesight was terrible. So they went down there, and they had the elephant actually on the dockside. And the wise men approached the elephant, And the first one went up and felt, first thing he touched was the leg. He felt the leg and he goes, hmm. And the next one walked up and he came against the side of the elephant and he felt the side and he goes, hmm. The next one felt the ear, he goes, hmm, hmm, okay. The next one felt the tusk of the elephant, he goes, oh, okay. And the next one felt the trunk of the elephant. And the last one grabbed onto the tail and pulled on it. Then they went back to the castle. They got back in the carriage, and they all went back up to the castle. The king says, so, wise men, tell me, what manner of beast is this elephant? And the first one says, your majesty, the elephant is like a smooth trunk of a small tree.

[03:19]

The next one says, no, that's not right. The elephant's like a wall. It's basically just like a wall. The third one says, no, no, no, no, no. That's not right. It's like a big palm leaf, basically. The third one says, no, no, no, no, no. You're all wrong. It's like a smooth spear. The next one says, no, no, no, no. You got it all wrong. It's like a snake. The elephant's like a snake. And the last one says, your majesty, you know I'm right. The elephant, it's like a rope leading up to the heavens. You pull on it and the heavens open up with waste. So the moral of this story is, well, I think there's several morals. First one, I think the wise men should have talked to each other a little bit, don't you? They should have compared notes. That's what I think. They should have checked it out with each other. Instead, you know, each one stuck to his own story.

[04:22]

I know what the elephant's like, and you guys are wrong. See, and that created some difficulty for them, because they were stuck to their own story about what the elephant was like. And another possible moral of that story might be, don't pull on elephants' tails. Another possible moral. OK, I've got one more story. One more story. And this story is about a man named Seiko. Seko was a fan of dragons. He's one of these people who, like, you know, some people, like, collect cows, pictures of cows, and some people collect, like, owls, like senior Dharma teacher Linda Ruth Cutts. He has a lot of pictures of owls and little statuettes of owls and so forth. Seko was into dragons, really into dragons. He had, like, carvings of dragons in his house. dragon wallpaper and dragon pajamas and dragon pictures and you know he had books about dragons and the whole works you know just anything about dragons he was into it okay and it just filled his whole house dragons dragons dragons and then one day a real dragon a real dragon with you know like bigger than a bus scales

[05:45]

Fire breathing. Fangs. Tusks. Fangs and tusks, actually. Pretty scary. Found out about this guy Seiko. And he said, wow, you know, he's so into dragons. I think I'll give him a treat. And so he came up to Seiko's window one day when Seiko was having tea. And he goes, hi, Seiko. And Seiko's like, ah! He was scared out of his wits. He didn't actually like seeing a real dragon. Maybe the moral of that story is be careful what you wish for. Okay, that's it. I'm done. But before you go, kids, before you go, I didn't want you to go empty handed. you may not know in fact i'm sure you don't know but my job at zen center is treasurer i'm in charge of the money so i brought you some money come on get some money you want some money come on i got some money for you here this money there's some from india here take that hold your hands together here take it take it there you go take some money

[07:12]

Yeah, it's from India, China. You want some money? Oh, wow, look at this one. It's got a hole in it. Russia, Canada, Somalia. Anyone else? Is that enough money? You get enough? OK. Anyone else? Want some money? Anyone? Anyone? Yes, no? Okay, we'll save some for future generations. This is a paperweight on my desk. It's accumulated over the years. Okay, thank you. Thank you. I said, welcome to City Center.

[08:13]

And especially, I'd like to welcome newcomers, if this is your first time, at the Beginner's Mind Temple. And especially, I would like to welcome anyone here who identifies as a person of color, because we need your help. I've talked to my sister at Simboala before about Zen Center. suffers from the heartbreak of MDS. A heartbreak of MDS, melanin deficiency syndrome. We need your help. I said melanin deficiency syndrome. And for all you residents, welcome back from interim. We just finished a week of, I don't know what the... Everyone should be really well rested, I'm thinking.

[09:19]

Yay! Fresh. I know I've been upholding the form of interim pretty well. Yeah. So now it's back into the schedule. So I wanted to say that a couple of weeks ago, I was in a... I was pleased to witness a priest ordination at Green Gulch Farm. And a couple weeks to come, there will be another one here at City Center, plug. This ordination at Green Gulch was one person, my friend Carolyn Cavanaugh, received the precepts and got her head shaved and became a priest. A very beautiful ceremony. And she was ordained by Tenshin Roshi, Reb Anderson. And after the ceremony, I happened to briefly talk to Tenshin Roshi in Cloud Hall.

[10:23]

And he said, well, how's city practice treating you? And I said, it's a beautiful brocade. And he gave me a big smile, big Reb Anderson smile. He said, I'm glad you can see it that way. So that's what I want to talk about today. The brocade of city practice. It wasn't the first time I used that phrase when I was talking to Reb. I've been using that a few times lately. Think about that. The brocade of city practice. I spent... Almost six years practicing monastically at Tassajara Zen Mountain Center. And that's very much its own thing. The container is very prescribed. The schedule is very prescribed. This is what you do. You don't have to think about anything.

[11:26]

Hardly. Just do the next thing. And it's wonderful. It's a wonderful, wonderful way to practice. And then... January 06, I came to the city center to be treasurer. And, you know, things shifted. It got a little different. There are so many practice opportunities in the city. Some people are laughing because they think your practice opportunity is a code word for trouble. But I'm sincere, actually. Just so many wonderful ways to practice here. And like my teacher, Sojan Roshi, he identifies himself as a greed type, and I identify myself as a greed type. I should explain. There's an old Buddhist text called the Visuddhi Maga, the path of purification, where this guy, Buddha Gosa,

[12:34]

It's sort of a psychological template, as it were, like the enneagram or the horoscope. You know, you're you. He classified people as three personality types that could like, you know, meld into one another that weren't so distinct. But greed type, hate or aversion type and, you know, confusion type. I think I'm mostly greed type. And sometimes I think I'm. I'm greedy for practice opportunities sometimes. I get on my calendar in my office, you know, and I type something in, Microsoft Outlook Calendar, you know, and this window comes up and it says, conflicts with another appointment on your calendar. I know! So, you know, you have to make decisions. You have to make choices. That's all right. Since I've come down here, I think maybe... Well, besides, of course, I hope it would go without saying, you know, practicing with my Dharma brothers and sisters here at City Center.

[13:44]

I also go every Sunday to San Quentin State Prison, and we have a Zen Buddhist Sangha there. And that's maybe the high point of my week. I was possibly going to make my whole talk about that, but I thought not. Then, of course, I get to go to Berkeley Zen Center, my home temple, for priest meetings and senior student meetings. And I get to see a lot more of my teacher, Sojan Roshi. On occasion, Mary Mosin asked me to help out with a group that she leads in Pleasant Hill when she can't do it, which will happen on a Monday night. Actually, last week it was... San Quentin Sunday and Pleasant Hill on Monday. That was very nice. I think a lot about what it means to practice in this city, what it means to us. I first came to City Center, actually, as a teenager in 1975.

[14:51]

I was 19 years old. And Baker Roshi was the abbot, Richard Baker, abbot at the time, very charismatic speaker. And I was an impressionable age, so I remember a lot of what he talked about. I remember a lot of his lectures. And one thing I recall him saying was, a lot of you, speaking to the city center assembly, he said, a lot of you are at the stage in your practice where you ought to be practicing in some remote mountain temple. But you can practice here. At city center, you can practice in the city as though it were a remote mountain temple. So I thought about that a lot. And I know that Suzuki Roshi thought about that a lot. Suzuki Roshi wanted his students to have the ability to practice as lay people to have like a strong practice, a strong Zazen practice, not exactly monastics, not exactly.

[15:59]

lay people as is understood in Japan or other, um, traditionally Buddhist countries, but, you know, actively practicing lay people. And, uh, I think, you know, that's, that's, we've made good on Suzuki Roshi's, um, idea, uh, that that's definitely going on here and continues to go on. Um, my teacher, Susan Roshi thinks about that a lot. Paul Hauer, our abbot, last year, along with Christina Lenhair, devised this year-long program called Establishing the Path of Practice for Newcomers, for people who wanted to, as laypeople, have continuous practice in their homes, and to greater or lesser degree, involving city center. I know that this upcoming practice period, which will start on September 29th, is also going to have an emphasis on that practicing urban practice.

[17:08]

So maybe my talk this morning is kind of a preview to the practice period to come or an appetizer. In fact, I actually I went on the Web and looked at the. Material for the practice period. I'm sure that Paul wrote this. He said, urban practice requests an adaptable and durable effort that flows from one situation to the next, sometimes defined by the traditional Zen formalities, sometimes defined by unexpected occurrences of city life. Yeah, I thought that was pretty good. So. When I was shuzo in Tassahara in 05 is when you started doing morning services. And in the morning service, we bow together when we chant the lineage of Buddhas and ancestors.

[18:14]

So we chant actually at Tassahara every day, the entire Soto Zen lineage from before Shakyamuni Buddha to Suzuki Roshi. And at certain points during that lineage, the doshi bows, does a full prostration for significant names, like Vasubandhu, Nagarjuna, Bodhidharma, Huynang, and Tungshan, and going down the line, Fuyo Dokai. And I was like, well, who's this Fuyo Dokai? I had no idea. So I was kind of curious about that. Why do we bow there? Why do we bow on his name? He was the 18th generation of Chinese ancestors. So I found out a little bit about him. In Chinese, his name is Fu Rong. Fu Rong Daokai. So it turns out he was a really strong practitioner.

[19:16]

His dharma name, Daokai, means a formal way, formal way. And he was really rigorous practice. And I think that's mostly what he's remembered for. By the way, his first name, Furong, means peony. I kind of like that. Peony. Peony. Flower. Probably the most famous thing that Furong wrote, or a sermon that he delivered that was written down, was called The Standards of Jetavana. Jetavana was the grove where the Buddha mostly taught in India, the Jetavana grove. And so I imagine the sermon was called The Standards of Jetavana because Furong was like, let's get down to brass tacks. Let's find out.

[20:18]

what practice really means and all of us get together and make it happen. So I'd like to read, it's translated in several places, including, Diana asked me if I was gonna do any book plugs today. So it's translated in Timeless Spring, a collection of translations by Thomas Cleary. which is very hard to find, and if you see it in the bookstore, snatch it up. And also in Enlightenment Unfolds, and also in the Shobogenzo, because Dogen, our founder in Japan, 13th century Japan, Dogen Zenji quotes this sermon in its entirety in the fascicle called Gyoji, or Continuous Practice. And just by funny coincidence, that's the fascicle we're going to be studying in the upcoming practice period.

[21:19]

How about that? And I like this translation. And I'm just going to read you a little bit of it. Friends, if you too physically master this state, you will truly be faultless people. If, on the other hand, you fail to experience it directly, I am deeply afraid that in future you will exhaust your energy in vain. Though there is nothing to attach to in the behavior of this mountain monk, I have been privileged to become master of the temple. How could I sit by while our provisions were used up in vain, suddenly forgetting the legacy of the past saints? Now I hope to demonstrate, as best I am able, the attitude in which people of old lived as temple masters. I have discussed it with everyone, and we have decided not to go down from the mountain not to go to meals offered by donors, and not to have a monk in charge of raising donations. Instead, we will ration the annual produce of the fields of this temple into 360 equal parts and use one ration per day without increasing or reducing the ration according to the number of people in the order.

[22:31]

If there is enough to make boiled rice, then we shall make rice. If there is not enough to make boiled rice, then we shall make gruel. If there is not enough to make gruel, then we shall make rice water. To welcome a newcomer, we shall just have plain tea, not a tea ceremony. We will simply provide a tea room, which each person may visit and use individually. We shall do our best to several involvements and to pursue the state of truth solely. And now he really switches gears. Still more vigorous activity surrounds us in abundance. There is no scarcity of beautiful scenery. The flowers know how to laugh, and the birds know how to sing. The timber horses whinny and the stone bulls gallop. Beyond the sky, the greenness of the mountains fades. Beside our ears, the babbling spring loses its voice. On mountain peaks, monkeys are squeaking. Dew moistens the moon in the sky. In the woods, cranes call. The wind swirls around the pines in the clear light of dawn.

[23:34]

When the spring breezes blow, withered trees sing dragon songs. The autumn leaves shrivel and the frozen forest scatters flowers. On the precious stone steps are laid patchworks of moss. People's faces have the mild air of haze and mist. Sounds are still. Situations are just as they are. In the sheer peace and solemnity, there is nothing to pursue. That's just part of the sermon. I love... Especially, I mean, I love the whole sermon, but especially when he says people's faces have the mild air of haze and mist. If you've ever sat Sashin, you might notice that people are practicing really hard. And their usual character armor just sort of melts, kind of melts. And you can see that. You can actually see that.

[24:36]

Tension we usually hold in our faces just sort of begins to go away. And I thought, reading this yesterday, I was thinking about officers and directors meeting Thursday, where it got kind of intense. And some emotion, but everyone just stayed with it. You know, nobody was like, I'm checking out in any way. Everyone just completely stayed with it. And I could see, like, behind people's facial expressions, a sort of groundwork, a foundation of commitment that just, you know, when I think about it, gives me very, very deep appreciation for this practice. So, speaking of unexpected occurrences of city life, I was thinking also, you know, what is Sangha in the city practice?

[26:00]

In Tazahara, it's very clear. We start a three-month ongoing practice period. The people in the practice period don't leave. Everyone commits to staying there for three months. That's the Sangha. But in the city, you know, it's very porous. People come and go. Some folks stick around. Some folks get to know quite well. And I want to take this opportunity to apologize for everyone's... whose name I can't remember. It really bugs me. I work with it because I just want to remember everyone's name, but I can't. And there's lots of people. And then, you know, of course, obviously, the Sangha goes on forever because we're interdependent with all of creation. We're practicing together with fishes and hummingbirds and dragons and you name it, mosquitoes.

[27:03]

All people. But the sangha, you know, as I think of it, kind of expanding and contracting. You know, recently we've had a couple of residence meetings in city center where it was just like, okay, there's no Wednesday lecture tonight. We're just going to have a meeting. Everyone got together and very serious. Again, the hazy look of mist. You know, real appreciation for that. People just giving their sincere effort to this practice. And just a week ago, some friends of mine, some friends of ours who are on the East Coast, lost their baby. And immediately, this sangha, started ringing the dencho bell 108 times.

[28:08]

Though they're far away on the East Coast, there's Charlie Piccorni and Sarah Emerson. Sarah was eight months pregnant and the baby was born prematurely and lived one day. Blanche? Four hours. Four hours. So she had fluid in her lungs and she just didn't make it. That Friday we had a memorial service and went well into lunch. Cliff up in the accounting office, our accountant, said he'd never seen me cry before. Sometimes I tell Blanche I'm not a crier, but I was crying. And then I had an appointment downtown that afternoon. And afterwards, I was pretty distraught.

[29:13]

I got on my bike. I usually try to ride my bike anywhere I go around the city. And I just started riding. I wasn't paying attention to where I was headed. And next thing I knew, I was going up Grant. I was in Chinatown. And since I was in Chinatown, I drifted over to Waverly Place, which is about the heart of Chinatown. There's about five temples there. So I said, okay, I'll park my bike. And I went up first to Pure Land Temple that's on a third floor walk-up flat. And the priest let me in. And I said, do you do memorial services? May I offer incense? He said, yes and yes. He said, as a matter of fact, he was getting ready for a memorial service as I was just getting there. He was writing... calligraphy on yellow pieces of paper and taping them to the wall. When he was done, the entire wall was going to be covered with these yellow pieces of paper. So he had me write down Sati Cecilia Emerson Picorni on a yellow piece of paper, and he was going to put it up there.

[30:20]

So they had that service last Sunday. And I offered incense there. And then I went down to the street and walked down the block to... The place is pretty famous, the Temple Tin Hao. Some of you may be familiar with it. It's the oldest Daoist temple in the USA. It dates back to 1852. It's something of an off-the-beaten-track tourist attraction. Tourists will walk up. This is a fourth-floor walk-up. They'll go up there, look around. No pictures permitted. They turn around and go back down again. If they're lucky, people will put... Money in the donation box. Both these places had donation box just like ours. So there was a woman there behind the counter. And I asked her if it did memorial services. And she said, yes. I explained the whole situation about baby girl and so forth.

[31:25]

And she says, wait right here and leaves. And I think she went down another flight of steps. I don't know where she went. But in the meantime, I realized I didn't have my backpack. And so I went down the stairs, back to the Pure Land Temple. Fortunately, the priest was still there. I went up there. Please, I forgot my backpack. He gives it to me. And then he says, you know, I think you need this. And he gave me this card. This is a Shittagarbha Bodhisattva. In Japanese, Jizo. Actually... He takes care of little babies who've died. So he gave me this card, and I pass it around. He says, you need this. I was like, you're right, I do. Back to the Taoist temple. The woman, I don't know if she noticed I'd left or not, but she had this package for me. It was like this big, all wrapped in plastic.

[32:30]

You could see through the plastic inside, and inside was like a tiny little pair of pink shoes, a little dress that was all covered in flowers and Hello Kitties and stuff, and some other things, everything a little girl would need, all made of paper. And some round paper medallions, quite a stack of them, and some other papers. And she was pushing them across the counter to me. I thought she wanted to give them to me or sell them to me. I was like, no, I don't want all that. Can I give you the name? And she sort of smiled at me benignly like, okay, he doesn't get it. That's okay. So she had me write down baby's name and mother and father's name and place of birth and time of birth all in this yellow piece of paper. And then I gave that to her and I said, may I offer incense?

[33:34]

And she said, yes. And so I went out on the balcony. There's a big incense on the balcony there. You know, nice, actually pretty good view of San Francisco skyline. And I'm offering incense and I'm crying again. When I turn around, she's at this altar, like 90 degrees adjacent to the main altar, praying like crazy, kneeling on a kneeling cushion, praying like crazy, doing this, you know, pumping... All the stuff that she was trying to give me was on the altar. And I saw that. And then, you know, I just dropped to my knees in Choke and put my hands in Gacho. And tears were rolling down my face. And she finishes. And there's this grate to the right of the altar that I hadn't noticed before. It's like this metal door. surrounded by green ceramic tile. She opened that up, took all this stuff off the altar, put it in there, lit some papers off an altar candle, put it in there.

[34:36]

And before you knew it, it's just it's amazing blaze all this time. No tourist has shown up in Templeton out, which is amazing. And she put all this money in there, fake money. It was very moving. So before I knew it, baby Sati had had a Taoist funeral. I thanked her very much. She gave me some fruit off the altar. Again, you need this. The same feeling, you need this. Taking care of me. And I hope we can practice in the same way in our temple. Taking care of people. Taking care of people's needs. And taking care of each other. Zenji, in his recommendations for practicing Zazen for all people, universally recommended, also known as the Fukan Zazengi, at the end, you know, he says, please honored followers of Zen, long accustomed to groping for the elephant, do not doubt the true dragon.

[36:03]

So, I'd like you to think about that today. What does he mean by that in the light of those stories? It turns out Seiko preferred his carvings of dragons to experiencing a real dragon. And I think that sometimes, certainly speaking for myself, we may prefer our stories about what practice is rather than engaging in real practice. Shakyamuni Buddha said, be a lamp unto yourself. Actually, those were his dying words. Be a lamp unto yourself. Find out for yourself what is truth. And for us in the Zen school, primarily this consists of sitting upright in shikantaza.

[37:07]

Nobody can sit zazen for you. You can't sit zazen for anybody else. That's the truth. You find out for yourself, moment after moment. Interim's over. It's the way to keep this practice fresh. It's the reason why this practice is still so fresh and vital. Because we actualize it. We make it happen. Without that, the teaching of this school, forget about it. So I'm going to leave you with one last encouraging word from Master Furong. You know, he really did that business with the ghoul. And that's a saying in Zen. You know, sometimes they talk about commitment to practice.

[38:11]

They say, eating furong's gruel. Whenever I come to preach about the behavior of the ancient saints, I always feel that there is nowhere to put myself. So ashamed am I of our weakness as people of later ages. How, then, could we serve each other offerings of exotic and delicious meals of a hundred tastes? We are equipped with the four things. That would be food, drink. place to sleep and medicine. And so we must establish the mind at once. Having said that, I am only afraid that the behavior of our hands and feet is so imperfect that we will pass remotely through lives and pass remotely through ages. Time is like an arrow and we should profoundly hate to be losing it. Although we are like this, still it is a fact that other people, relying upon their merits, have been delivered. This mountain monk is unable to force the teaching upon you.

[39:13]

But, my friends, have you ever read the following verse by a person of old? Our meal is boiled foxtail millet reaped from the mountain fields. For vegetables, we have faded yellow pickles. Whether you eat them is up to you. If you choose not to eat, you are free to go east or west. With due respect, fellow practitioners, may each of you be diligent. Take good care of yourselves. Now that's Zen. Thank you very much. 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 the practice of giving by offering your financial help. For more information, visit sfcc.org and click Giving. May all beings be happy.

[40:11]

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