This podcast is offered by the San Francisco Zen Center on the web at www.sfzc.org. Our public programs are made possible by donations from people like you. It's a beautiful autumn day. I just took a little walk. I need to say any more about that. If you haven't, take a little walk. It's quite a remarkable world we're living in here. So it's the sixth day of Sashin. We're all forgetting ourselves and stewing in

[01:06]

the juices of ourselves. It's, I think, very good practice to be stewing in our own juices. So we've created this cooking pot, zendo, cauldron for ourselves to really become very intimate with ourselves. And then in doing so, forget ourselves I was bowing we had a silent day yesterday so bowing here and it's an interesting process bowing for a while first I'm conscious of coordinating the breath with the bow so Inhaling, standing up and exhaling, down to the knees and completely down and just completing the exhale and rising up, inhaling.

[02:19]

And after doing that for a while, then I had the thought, well, I merged with, someone merged with bowing. There was no one bowing. There was just bowing. But then someone emerged. After merging with bowing, someone emerged from bowing and the one emerged from bowing wondered what's this bowing about? Is this bowing to something? And so then I thought if I'm bowing to something it has to be bowing to everything. So I thought, that's it. I'm bowing to everything. And so I thought, how to say bowing to everything? I thought, I'm bowing to the perfection of the universe. I'm bowing to the perfection of the universe.

[03:26]

And so that was pretty satisfying for a little while. So today, I bow to the perfection of the universe. But then I thought, that's too dualistic. So then I thought, I'm bowing with the perfection of the universe. And then I thought, this bowing is only possible because this is the perfection of the universe. I'm included in that. So then I thought, OK, then I'm I'm no longer bowing, but this bowing is happening within the perfection of the universe. So I'm bowing within the perfection of the universe. So I'm still playing with that. Maybe it's best just to bow. But it is also some teaching that, okay, we...

[04:34]

This universe is perfection. It's the only universe we've got. As Buddhists, we say this is the only universe we've got. There may be other religions where there's other universes or other heavens or something. But we have a pretty clear teaching that this is it. But what is it? If there's no other universe, but what is this universe? So this then becomes a great question or inquiry. So if it's so perfect, why is there so much difficulty? Why is there so much suffering? Some people have been coming up in Dokkasan with some suffering. Yeah.

[05:42]

Pretty difficult. Maybe, so then I had the thought, well, it's partly because Frankie was away, and then Frankie came back, and so then I thought, well, Frankie was away. He's missing his mother. His mother's right here in Sashin. Where is that? To have a mother in Sashin is, you know, a big mystery. Pretty scary. And, you know, when you're a child, you may think that you're responsible for... There's kind of a stage in development, right? You think you're responsible for everything that happens. First, you don't know what's happening, and then you start noticing that, oh, I do something, and something happens, and pretty soon it's possible to have the thought that somehow everything that I do is making everything happen or not happen. So I thought, Shakyamuni Buddha's mother died when he was a few days old.

[06:53]

What did he make of that? So then to say in contrast to the thought, I bow to the perfection of the universe, I thought of this whole matter of loss and death. And then I had this old blues song pop into my head, which is actually not sure whose song. I think it's Mance Lipscomb. Way back in the days of vinyl discs, I had a vinyl disc of Mance Lipscomb. It's because motherless children have a hard time when the mother is dead, when their mother is dead.

[07:56]

Motherless children have a hard time when the mother is dead, when the mother is dead. Your daddy will be a mother for you, but there's so many things your daddy just can't do. Motherless children have a hard time when the mother is dead. Jesus will be a mother to you when your mother is dead. Jesus will be a mother to you when your mother is dead. Jesus will be a mother to you, but there's so many things that Jesus just can't do. Motherless children have a hard time when the mother is dead. So we have this experience of birth and death and we have a perfect universe.

[09:04]

How do we hold that? How do we hold that? the 20th ancestor, Jayata, or Shayata we say when we chant it. Somewhere here. Shayata, well it's interesting. Shayata I think was maybe the first one He was raised as a Buddhist. His parents are Buddhists. And so he says, although my parents have always had faith in the Buddha, his Dharma, and the Sangha, they have always been in poor health.

[10:06]

For the most part, whatever they have done has not worked out as they wished. But our neighbor, who persists in behaving like Al Capone, the al-law, has all... I changed the translation a little. So our neighbor, who persists in behaving like Al Capone, has always been fit and healthy. And his efforts are successful. For a while, anyway. So, a kumaratha replies, Although you already have faith in the karma of the three times, still you have not clarified the fact that karma is produced from delusion. Delusion exists as a result of consciousness.

[11:10]

Consciousness results from ignorance, and ignorance from mind. Mind is originally pure, without origination or cessation, without doing or effort, without karmic retribution, without superiority or inferiority, very still and very intelligent. If you understand this teaching, you will become the same as all the Buddhas. All good and evil, conditioned and unconditioned, All good and evil, conditioned and unconditioned things are like dreams and fantasies. And so shayata at that point understood. So shayata had a foundation in the conventional teaching of cause and effect. And yet there's some residue, say, in...

[12:13]

in Indian culture, residue of the self, residue of atman. So even though the Buddha is teaching anatman, the Buddha is teaching no self, there is this notion of self. When there's a notion of self, then karma has something to work on. So there may be Buddhist practitioners, who think that by practicing good, by practicing the bodha way, by taking refuge in bodha, dharma, sangha, my life should work out better. There may be people in this room who think that or hope that. So... So even though we say over and over again, you know, don't have any gaining idea, it's not so helpful to have a gaining idea.

[13:22]

It's inevitable that human beings have some gaining idea. We are always looking for, you know, how do things happen and what actually serves me? There's a little... or maybe a lot of me in the equation. So this is the first statement that I bow to the universe of perfection is like calling up the freedom of the third noble truth. And the suffering of the world is in the first noble truth. And the bridge The bridge of understanding is the second noble truth, which is the inquiry into suffering.

[14:22]

Inquiry into how does suffering come about. Inquiry into how is it that we have so much difficulty. We have a big problem. So Jayata is asking, What's the deal? My parents are doing this, all this, that's right, you know, they're doing this, and they're doing this, and it's all, they're doing good, and they're having faith, and we just chanted the Hosokotsukamon, which sometimes may sound like, oh, if you just, if you have faith, then, you know, all the Buddhas and ancestors will appear, and And then your life will work out. So whose life is it that works out?

[15:24]

To me, this is a fundamental question to understand whose life is it. And as long as I think, oh, it's my life, then then I have that problem so I have to go back maybe this is a bit of a digression but I've been hearing I'm sorry that I haven't been here to attend the Wayseeking Mind Talks people have been giving but I have listened to all of the Wayseeking Mind Talks that have been recorded there was one that got missed but So I still intend to have a meeting with that person and hear all about it. But there's some suffering in everyone's way-seeking mind talk.

[16:32]

And there's some sense of, okay, how can I resolve this? And how can I find a way to live? that actually meets something that's more fundamental than the things that I was trying to say the things that I was trying to grasp at or the things that I was told I should do that would be good the things that I was told so fortunately for myself I've been kind of a contrary person all my life so I never really took anyone's advice. That was pretty difficult. That had its difficulties too. But what I was thinking of around this question of suffering, I think when I was about a sophomore, this is a little piece of my own way seeking mind.

[17:39]

When I was a sophomore, I think, in high school, there was some kind of a national examination or something that I took, and I don't remember much about it except my physics teacher came up afterwards. The results were back and said, you should be a scientist. Of course, he was a physics teacher. He had a bias. He said, you know, the Russians have Sputniks. We need more scientists. And of course, first I thought, well, he doesn't know who he's talking to. A Mennonite kid would not be particularly excited about campaigning against the Russians. But my real thought was... something like you know I didn't have a very clear sense but I had the feeling that the path of science is unable to really get at the truth of existence I didn't tell him this but because it's always it's always looking at an object

[19:09]

and an object and the scientist cannot include him or herself in the equation. No matter how one tries, one can't completely include oneself in the equation. So I was thinking like stepping back from the equation and stepping back from oneself and looking at one's own motivation, stepping back from oneself and looking at that person examining that motivation and looking stepping back and looking at the person examining the motivation of the person examining the motivation and constructing the experiment so I can see you know that's you know at any point along the way if you stop you fail and you end up with something that's probably anyway it's not satisfying I just thought, well, whatever that would be, it would not be satisfying. So now I'm in the business of endless investigation.

[20:14]

Endlessly investigating. Endlessly being in a place of not knowing. So it's kind of a useless business to be in. Except... that human beings can't really be human beings without this cultivation of awareness. So this is actually cultivation of awareness. So the satisfying life is this ongoing cultivation of awareness. So this includes being in the bow, This includes being the one bowing and being the one bowed to. This includes them bowing to everything and everyone as the manifestation of oneself as the perfection of the universe.

[21:20]

So that is completely then liberating. I don't know if that makes sense when I say that. But the experience of that is completely liberating. That one is no longer believing that one can actually control and manipulate things to suit oneself because one sees that oneself is already the product of all the things. And the product of all the things is the would be the product of no things or emptiness I wrote down a little quote from Nagarjuna without a foundation in the conventional truth the significance of the ultimate cannot be taught without the understanding of the significance of the ultimate liberation is not achieved

[22:29]

So we need to have the basic understanding, say, basic foundation, understanding cause and effect. What he's saying is conventional truth. So that's... That involves evaluation and measurement and making decisions. We're involved in that all the time. I was noticing this morning with the Oryoki that... I have a tendency to think in a sixteenth of an inch. Being trained as a carpenter, you think in terms of one sixteenth of an inch, and that's pretty good for most carpentry. That works. If I was trained as a machinist, probably it would probably be thousands of an inch. And then I would think, well, okay, I want the space between the Buddha bowl and the middle bowl to be, well, I'd like it, three sixteenths of an inch.

[23:47]

I like that. But there's a give and take of a sixteenth of an inch. It's okay. Give a 16th. And so for now, so some of you here may be, I know Mary is trained as a carpenter. Now, if you're making cabinets, though, a 16th is not good enough, really. It's got to be more like a 32nd or a 64th. And then Japanese carpenters use a finer snap line. You know, I... People know what a snap line is. You stretch a string. So if you're laying out something, you would put a, usually we use a chalk line, have a string that has chalk on it and pull it out. Pull it taut. When you pull the string taut, then you have a straight, shortest distance between two points, straight line. You have a straight line and you snap it and it lays down a line of chalk.

[24:53]

The line of chalk is about a sixteenth of an inch wide. But Japanese carpenters use a finer string with ink on it. And it's more like, yeah, maybe more like a 64th. So there's at least an opportunity for more precision. Of course, then you have to follow that. You have to follow it through if you're going to actually be precise. If you're making a piano, or a violin or something, then you have to be very precise. You don't want any, you don't have that kind of wiggle room that you do when you're building a Zendo. And carpenters actually, if somebody, and so to find exactly the right place to be is to know what scale you're working with.

[25:56]

So if you have too fine a scale for what you're doing, then it doesn't help. So if you're trying to do framing a house to 1 64th of an inch, you're actually wasting time and effort. So your boss will come by and say, you know, you're not building a piano. You're not building a piano. So that reminds me of another scale. So for a while I worked construction, I was doing millwright work where we were doing steel work up on grain elevators. And so I was just remembering my boss. My boss was named Buck. And Buck is pretty tough.

[26:57]

In fact, the first day on the job, Buck said, you've got to drill a hole through this silo at this place up here. So I'm up here on the top of an extension ladder with the rotor hammer going and drilling through concrete. And the rotor hammer jabs. It hits some rebar in there or something. And the handle comes around and whacks me on the nose. I'm hanging on the ladder and I've got blood running down. So I go down and I say, what do I do? And he says, well, get back up there and drill the hole. But this other time, it was really cold. It was like... This was in Toledo, Ohio, and we're just finishing the job. The welding was done on these pipes, and we're about 60 feet off the ground, and I'm up there.

[28:04]

I'm hanging it up off a cable in a swing seat, and I've got a bucket with paint because I'm painting over where the welds were. And it's freezing cold. It's snowing, actually. It's sleeting and snowing, and I'm trying to paint this weld up here. And I'm taking too long, right? So Buck yells out, and he yells at me, he says, hey! He says, oh, that's when I, he says, hey, slap that paint on like you was killing snakes. So he wanted me to... wanted me to paint like that. He was a good teacher. One of my good teachers right now, I should bow about a buck.

[29:09]

I think he had maybe a third grade education, something like that. And he had He was really smart. I was always trying to outthink him if I could get a couple of steps ahead of him, and I actually never could. Maybe one time I did. But then I was wrong because I let him go ahead and make a mistake. And I could see he was doing something that wasn't going to work. So this is another buck story, he says. So after, you know, he went ahead and did something that wasn't going to work, cutting something. Anyway, I won't go into what we were doing, but I'm standing there helping him. But it would have been more helpful if I'd have actually said something, right? So afterwards, he steps back and we look at him and said, that ain't going to work.

[30:12]

He says, what are you doing just standing there letting me do something stupid? So it's helpful to know, okay, what's the situation? What is relatively helpful? So if you... So always, you know, as we're moving through our life... It's important to know the context. So what are the terms and what is the scale that you're using in the relative world? And you begin to notice then, if you investigate this, you begin to notice how self-clinging interferes with seeing the scale that you're working in.

[31:20]

in the relative world. So for me to be standing there while Buck is making some mistake, I'm involved in some hesitation. I actually don't know how to be helpful. So I'm involved in my own hesitation. not knowing how to say what's appropriate. If I was not involved in my own selfish concern, I would see and I would naturally just point out, oh, excuse me. So sometimes people get involved in a lot of unnecessary concern.

[32:25]

Oh, what's going to happen if I say something? Am I going to be criticized if I say something? What's going to happen if I, maybe I'm safer if I don't say something? So that kind of involvement with oneself impairs and hinders one being able to be helpful. So a lot of our work is investigating how we're holding on to the involvement with oneself. So this is And so ultimately to be involved with oneself is to believe that one actually has some substantial or is some substantial being.

[33:32]

To believe that one is some substantial essential being is the basis for all kinds of trouble, all kinds of suffering. And we believe it in many different ways. We believe it in maybe having some philosophy about it, or we believe it in just the way we hold it in our body, in our bodies. In this example, I was believing it by holding hesitation in my body. I could see something was wrong, and I was stuck there. So I was actually believing that I was unable to speak. Even though if you'd asked me, I would not have said, no, I'm not able to speak. But my action says, oh, I'm unable to speak at that moment.

[34:40]

So we have to learn about karma. Now in the story here, when Kumarata responds to Shayata, he says, you know about karma in the three times. So there's this whole theory of karmic retribution that happens. Karmic retribution either happens right away, or in this lifetime, or it happens in the next lifetime. So this is kind of a clumsy idea. kind of a clumsy idea, I'd say, in the next lifetime, which really is a kind of a notion that there is some being that is existing as an entity in the next lifetime.

[35:46]

That's not really the way things work, but It may be helpful to say that. It's helpful to say that so that you actually understand that your actions do have consequence. And that the action of clinging to self has consequence that goes beyond oneself. The action of clinging to self has consequence for the whole perfect universe. clinging to self did not have consequence, then the universe wouldn't be perfect. But the universe is perfect in that everything does have consequence. Of course, to say things have consequences is conventional truth. That there is a thing and there is consequence. So when we do our meal chant and we say emptiness of the three wheels, giver, receiver, and gift, We're saying, actually, they're empty.

[36:50]

There's no giver, there's no receiver, there's no gift. And there is giver, receiver, and gift. So we're appreciating that. So there's that teaching of karmic retribution that's immediate, and karmic retribution in the next life. And then, just in case, there's karmic retribution that is endless potential for karmic retribution, no matter how many kalpas it goes on. there is this teaching that one does not escape karmic retribution. However, one escapes karmic retribution and liberation in the third noble truth. But it's not escaped in the conventional realm because you can't escape it. It's escaped because you're no longer clinging to self. So, sometimes we learn, oh, that, you know, I do something wrong and something terrible happens, and that makes sense.

[37:59]

So, in my neighborhood up in Ronard Park, where my wife is holding the fort, there was just a recent incident, terrible tragedy, where a A car comes along and hits a mother and her two-year-old in the crosswalk and kills the two-year-old. And the mother is critically injured. And it turns out that the driver of the car was a 20-year-old woman who was texting or trying to text or get a text message while she's driving. And she turns, you know, is a wonderful person, a wonderful person who is the captain of the volleyball team. And, you know, and so we say, oh, yeah, we understand that it's the karmic potential of texting while driving.

[39:10]

That's pretty serious, you know, and we need to make a law about that. So we make a law about it. And still, I don't know whether we've made a law yet. If we haven't, it'll probably be in the works. But there already is a law about it. The law about it is that the universe is very strict. And whenever there's... We put ourselves in a situation where we might cause harm... by carelessness, the universe can be very strict about that. So to be handling a lethal weapon, an automobile, means one needs to actually follow the strict rules of handling a lethal weapon.

[40:15]

Now, it doesn't mean that many times one doesn't get away with it because there's potentiality and there isn't. Every time I text while I'm driving that something terrible is going to happen or every time I drink and I'm impaired and I drive that I'm going to run off the road and crash into a tree. It doesn't happen every time. But we know that the potential is there. So we have precepts to help guide us to recognize that when we are in this world, this relational world that we've created together as human beings, that there's a context, there's an appropriate scale, and that has to be respected.

[41:19]

consequences of not respecting it can be very severe. So now it would be you know it's not accurate to think that everything that goes wrong is due to me. Everything that goes wrong in my life is due to me. This was Shayata's question, you know, asking, okay, my parents are doing good and good, but things are going wrong. So what have they done wrong? There must be something they've been doing wrong. No. That would be giving incredible power to each one of us, right? If everything bad that happened was your fault, we can't even say that you are your fault. In fact, it's a relief to know that I'm not my own fault.

[42:26]

But then it's no help to assign blame elsewhere either. Somebody else did this to me and somebody did that to me and this happened. So it's, I'd say, disturbing It's disturbing to recognize that there are so many variables that one can't actually calculate always what the risk is, what the consequences are. So we have this teaching of present moment awareness. And this is worth testing out over and over again. If you're in the present moment, do you have the resources that are needed?

[43:34]

Or do you need to bring a bunch of extra baggage along? So Buddhist practitioners have been working with this for the whole time, with the Buddhist project. The Buddhist experiment, you know. What do you actually need to bring along if you're going to live in it? And it's culturally interconnected, right? Depending on the culture you're in is different. Depending on the ambient temperature, do you need to bring an extra robe or not? Do you need to cultivate how to generate your own vital heat or not? If you're in India, it's different than Tibet. If you're in China, it's different than the USA. So we're in this experiment. What do we need to bring along to live in the present moment? What do we actually need to carry on our bodies?

[44:38]

What do we need to have, say, near at hand? What do we need to have somewhere we can find it? Or know who to ask? And I suggest it's actually valuable to simplify as much as possible. Just carry what you need. And when you think, well, I don't know if I need this or not. Maybe if I set it down and proceed, I'll find out. Do I need it or not? So do I need to have an attitude of ill will toward that person, for example? So this applies to things. It applies to clothing. It applies to whether you should bring your toothbrush or not. But it also applies to whether one needs to hold a particular belief. Would it be dangerous for me not to have an attitude of ill will toward that person?

[45:43]

What would happen if I don't have the attitude of ill will toward that person? So it's worth examining that. It's worth examining that in many cases the person doesn't even exist. Or I don't even know the person I met. I'm feeling ill-will to someone who I've never met. I'm feeling ill-will toward the Taliban. I'm feeling ill will, but then, you know, there's a whole story around that. Do I need that? Do I need to carry that? We're walking around the camp here. You know, is there someone here that I feel? Oh, I feel. I don't know how I feel. Do I feel that I'm safe with that person or not?

[46:48]

So each of us has our own responsibility to investigate what's true for oneself. So I'm suggesting that the The basic principle of not having anything extra can be really experimented with carefully in sitting zazen. Sitting zazen, you're pretty safe. We've created a wonderful place here where we can sit zazen, where we can practice not adding anything extra. Not adding anything extra is what I wanted to do when I was deciding not to be a scientist.

[47:57]

A different kind of scientist began looking at what have I already added that's extra? What am I already bringing to this view that is contaminating the view? So sitting zazen you can you can take up the opportunity to see, am I adding anything extra? If I'm having a thought, oh, a thought comes up. This thought is about some person. This thought is about some person who did me wrong. I really need to hold on to this thought. In case that person is going to do me wrong again, I want to be ready to defend myself. But then it occurs to me this person is not even living anymore. So then is that something extra?

[49:02]

Thank you, Kitchen. So maybe I don't need to carry... Maybe I don't need to carry this fear about this person doing me wrong when they're no longer living. So that's worth investigating. See, how am I actually holding that? And I might think it's silly to hold that, but then I find I actually am holding it. But I'm smart enough to not think that that person is going to come back from the dead. You know, the zombie or something. Although people sometimes think that, right? Or that I'm going to be haunted by the ghost of that person, or I am.

[50:07]

There is a way in which there is a kind of a ghost of that person that's living in me... But instead of that, I'm actually holding that and I'm kind of putting it on. Someone else kind of reminds me of that person. They might be scary. They might be dangerous too. And we do this on sometimes a conscious level, but usually on a level that we carry in our body. but is not accessible consciously. And so this is a practice then of clarifying and in Zazhen you may notice something that's coming up in the body and I don't know what it is. It may just show up as pain. It may show up as restlessness. Can I be present with it?

[51:11]

And trust that I don't need to add anything extra to it. And I don't need to carry anything. Maybe I can set that down. Dogen says, drop off body-mind. He's talking about that. Letting go of anything that's extra. And finally, letting go of... belief in self. Realizing that self is tentative. Self is just possible because of the support of the entire perfect universe. So noticing the thought of all the statements that come up in mind to begin with I, or mine, or my.

[52:20]

What's it like to not have that, to not believe that? To simply have the awareness of what's happening and let that awareness become more and more and more and more intimate, more and more refined. And then from this place, realizing that this is confidence in the true nature of things. It's already working so well, although a lot of it I don't like. It's working so well. And then to notice ways in which I disagree with it and set that aside.

[53:30]

I just remembered I had a poem I'm going to read here. More of a statement. which I read a couple of times a year, so you may have already heard it. This is a statement by Bill Stafford, William Stafford. William Stafford grew up in Hutchinson, Kansas, which is where my aunt Marilyn just died last week. a wonderful poet he was always looking at how people should how people are living and how people can live in a way that's supportive of each other and not aggressive to each other how to be peaceful with each other so this poem is called

[54:45]

a ritual to read to each other. If you don't know the kind of person I am, and I don't know the kind of person you are, a pattern that others made may prevail in the world, and following the wrong God home, we may miss our star. For there is many a small betrayal in the mind, a shrug that lets the fragile sequence break, sending with shouts the horrible errors of childhood storming out to play through the broken dyke. And as elephants parade, holding each elephant's tail, but if one wanders, the circus won't find the park. I call it cruel, and maybe the root of all cruelty to know what occurs but not recognize the fact.

[55:51]

And so I appeal to a voice, to something shadowy, a remote, important region in all who talk. Though we could fool each other, we should consider that lest the parade of our mutual life get lost in the dark. For it is important that awake people be awake, or a breaking line may discourage them back to sleep. The signals we give, yes or no or maybe, should be clear. The darkness around us is deep. I'll read it one more time and you can kind of follow it. If you don't know the kind of person I am and I don't know the kind of person you are a pattern that others made may prevail in the world and following the wrong God home we may miss

[57:12]

our star. For there is many a small betrayal in the mind, a shrug that lets the fragile sequence break, sending with shouts the horrible errors of childhood storming out to play through the broken dyke. And as elephants parade holding each elephant's tail, but if one wanders, the circus won't find the park. I call it cruel and maybe the root of all cruelty to know what occurs but not recognize the fact. And so I appeal to a voice, to something shadowy, a remote important region in all who talk. Though we could fool each other, we should consider lest the parade of our mutual life get lost in the dark For it is important that awake people be awake.

[58:18]

Or a breaking line may discourage them back to sleep. The signals we give yes or no or maybe should be clear. The darkness around us is deep. So please continue. your practice investigating anything that is like that shrug, the shrug that lets the fragile sequence break. Thank you for listening and continue your practice. 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.

[59:24]

For more information, visit sfzc.org and click Giving.

[59:32]

@Transcribed_UNK
@Text_v005
@Score_95.05