So welcome, everybody. We are in the middle of a three-week intensive for the people who are registered for the intensive. We're also in the middle of an intensive period of forest fires and recovery for the people who are here from Tassajara. And so it's a... It's a very interesting time here at Zen Center. Interesting as, maybe as in the ancient Chinese curse, may you live in interesting times. I don't know. But what that brings me to is, what is the Buddha's response to the human condition of interesting times and interesting situations? And... How many people are here for the first time? Okay, so several people are.

[01:04]

And also the people in the intensive have been exploring various sutras and teachings of the Buddha on mindfulness and on shamatha and vipassana, stabilization and contemplation, and many other things. And so please forgive me if some of this is review. The Buddha taught several ways to understand the teaching and their all wisdom. One of them is to hear the words or even memorize the words of the teaching. The next one is to reflect on the teaching. And only the third one is to become the teaching. So hearing the teaching can sometimes include many, many repetitions of parts of the teaching before they become parts of us.

[02:07]

I also want to thank Lucy, without whom this lecture would not be possible because I'm sitting on her zapu. Zapu, for the first timers, is the round cushion. with which you make contact with the floor through something either harder or softer. And my, I won't make the announcement about my loss of food here, I'll wait for another time. So, my topic today is the Buddha's response to the human condition. Before the Buddha was the Buddha, he was a person just like us. And even after he became enlightened, he still had a human form just like ours today. And each time we sit down, we're doing the same activity that the Buddha sat down to become a Buddha.

[03:15]

That's the context in which I want to give this lecture. So... San Francisco is a Zen center, and Zen is a yogic path that follows Buddha's teachings. But the main life work of the Buddha that he taught about was how to respond to the human condition of suffering. So you might say, yes, that's true, I'm suffering. Or you might say, no, I'm not suffering. What am I doing here? Maybe I'll just be here until the fog burns off. LAUGHTER So either way, I want to let you know what the Buddha meant by the word suffering. So, you know, before the Buddha was a Buddha, when he was a human being, he was born into a princely family, into a royal family. And at the time of his birth, there was a prophecy that either he would be a great king or a great sage.

[04:22]

So hearing a prophecy, his parents said, oh no, oh no. King, king. We want him to be a king. Be a king, be a king. Just like parents everywhere. They wanted the joy of knowing that their son was doing honorable work and was well cared for and that those he loved would be well cared for. And sages... did not necessarily have much financial security. Nor were their good works necessarily recognized. So the Prince Gautama was therefore sheltered very much by his parents, who made sure that everything that he came into contact with was pleasant or beautiful for a long time. And one day, when the prince was in the company of his charioteer getting fresh air around town, he noticed somebody who appeared to be sweating and shaking.

[05:33]

He asked, what's that? What's going on with that person? That person looks different. Something's going on. The charioteer said, that's a sick person, Lord. And... The Thomas said, oh, well, he doesn't look happy. He looks like he's suffering. And the charioteer said, that's unavoidable. The prince said, does everybody get sick? And the charioteer said, yes, that's the human condition. And this happened several more times with an old person who a dead person. And the prince started understanding that there were things that he didn't know about and hadn't been exposed to, but they were there nonetheless, and part of him nonetheless.

[06:34]

A great feeling of compassion arose in him, and he didn't know what to do. Then, he saw somebody dressed in robes very much like these and said, what's that? And the charioteer said, that's a practitioner. And the prince said, what does he do? And the charioteer said, he's dedicated to investigating the great questions of life and our relationship with the infinite, something like that. And the Buddha said, well, seems like the greatest question of human life is what to do with this pain and suffering and distress that comes upon us, inevitably, as the charioteer said. And later on, as he was to investigate this, he realized that there were even more things besides sickness, old age, and death that inevitably produced suffering.

[07:44]

even more conditions than that. So his final list was sickness, old age, death, birth, as he realized that anything that was born must die, not getting what one wants, when he realized that what really attaches us, what really makes suffering come into conjunction with us, is our involvement due to wanting or not wanting. So to not get what one wants. And then the next one came directly from there, which was separation from what one loves. And then, of course, he realized, oh, then conjunction with what one loves. doesn't love or what one hates. So that's his final list.

[08:46]

Sickness, old age, death, birth, not getting what one wants, not being together with what one loves, and being together with what one hates. And he realized that all of these conditions do come to each one of us and that they produce suffering. And so that was his motivation, was a feeling of compassion for every being because these conditions are inevitable. And to resolve this suffering, the Buddha was willing to put himself into a variety of unpleasant situations.

[09:49]

Not only did he leave his home and his parents, but he left his new wife and baby son. His life of privilege. And eventually... even more and more intimate things. Until finally he let go of this very existence itself, yet without throwing off the world. So, out of great compassion, he was willing to die various sorts of deaths. without throwing off this world of suffering in order to concentrate more and more deeply on the great question of human life. So I think that's really important. Without throwing away this world of suffering, he was willing to die various sorts of deaths.

[10:56]

I don't know if you've ever suffered through an illness or a breakup, or prolonged frustration, various sorts of things that come to us. Maybe there's, if there's anyone who hasn't been through one of those things, would you please let me know because I want to meet you. I'm desperate to meet you. But, so it brings us to Events like this intensive or like this community, this whole community is an event. Today's coming to San Francisco Zen Center, maybe for the first time, is an event like that. And when we are willing to come and concentrate ourselves, to make, it's kind of a lion's roar. It's a statement of courage.

[12:01]

in the midst of suffering, a statement of faith, to be willing to come and concentrate ourselves on something. And today I'd like to focus on the part of concentration. It's like food. It's a sort of nourishment of our deep intention. And like that sort of food, you know, sometimes we make a food offering, like at breakfast. every morning during the intensive, we're making a food offering where we're taking a little bit of each kind of food that we're eating, literally, and we're offering it to the Buddha, which is not an offering from the person who's making an offering to an idol. It's not outside them like that. It's more an acknowledgement that everything that nourishes us, comes from and goes back to the infinite nature of awakeness.

[13:07]

And our concentration, like our food, like that kind of nourishment, it's an offering to Buddha and Sangha of a nourishment of our intention, our own concentration. You can read about this in a chapter of Dogen Zenji's writing called the Fukanza Zengi, which is in our sutra book. And the title of the Fukanza Zengi is something like a universal ceremony to a universal ceremony of sitting. Huh? It can be said recommendation, but gi is a very interesting word. It's like part of gi is my name. It has a person doing my name, gi, which means purpose.

[14:12]

It means meaning. It means kind of artha or alignment, aligned purpose. It means virtue. I mean, it has so many meanings. And the gi in Fukasazengi has a person doing this. And so Tenshin Roshi translates it as a ceremony or a seal or a mudra. The Zazen posture, another name for it, Taigen Leighton, translates it as Buddha mudra or a seal. It's a kind of formal... enactment of our awakening that not only is a path to awakening but the posture of zazen assuming the seated meditation posture is a ceremony and the realization of awakening itself and we do it as an offering a profound offering from awakening to awakening by means of awakening and that is Buddha's response to the question of human suffering

[15:26]

So we don't necessarily feel it that way at the beginning. In the beginning, it's a kind of, oh, I'm going to sit down. Instead of standing, walking, or lying down, I'm going to sit down. And instead of sitting comfortably, as I understand comfortably, I'm going to sit up. So not only am I sitting down, but I'm sitting up. Okay, sitting up, sitting up. Ow, this hurts. So our first understanding is something more like that. Ow. Or, ow, O-X-Y-Z, pound sign, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Not to be mentioned during lecture, particularly, unless I have to. But you fill in the blanks. And so, but each time that comes up, we make a deliberate decision to prune our raw experience, like a plant. Okay?

[16:29]

So not only instead of sitting any possible way do we sit upright in this yogic posture, but also as various sorts of negative interpretations about our life come up, we prune those too. Even though there's sort of sticky beauty about them that makes us want to stay there. You know? That's a kind of pruning of the results of our suffering. I'm sorry. of the condition of our suffering. And what we're aiming for is that we're culling, just like, let's say, you were at home organizing your mess, okay? And let's say you had a big stack of papers, and your intention was, okay, first of all, I'm going to let go of everything that I haven't even looked at in the past year. So everything that isn't current now.

[17:31]

But also, I want in the auto folder, just the auto things. And in the PG&E folder, just the PG&E things, or at most utilities things. And I want in the recipes, just recipes. And in the study materials, just the study materials, and perhaps even just the Buddhist ones here, And the self-help one's there. And the financial one's there. Okay? So it's just like that, except that when we sit, in the scene, there is just the scene. And in the herd, there is just the herd. You know? And in the smell, just the smelled and so on, all the way up to in the cognized, there is just the cognized. And this is a sutra of the Buddhas. When in the sin, there's just the sin.

[18:31]

When in the herd, there's just the herd. When in the cognized, there's just the cognized. Then there will be no here, nor there, nor in between, and so on. And our suffering will be healed. Okay? so that we're neither identifying nor disidentifying with our experience. It's the end of suffering. So ultimately, the point of our concentration is to help all beings, all conditions. And our main motivation, like the Buddha's, therefore is compassion in the spirit of wisdom. It's like everything is included. in this posture, you don't say, okay, son, you're not included. You know, you're in pain, so out with you.

[19:32]

You know, negative thought, you're not included. Out with negative thoughts. Off with its head. That's not what we do in Zaza. Instead, we sit and develop a body and mind that's wide enough, deep enough, and upright enough to hold even this. that's arising right now. That is the meaning of the Buddha mudra, the seal posture of meditation. And Paul has been speaking about shamatha and vipassana, about how zazen, our seated meditation posture, is the uniting of shamatha and vipassana. So this is actually a very old concept. It comes from the old definition of zazen. that was part of the tradition that Dogenzenji, the founder of our school in Japan, was ordained in. Before he was a Zen monk, he was a Tendai monk.

[20:34]

And the Tendai definition of seated meditation was Shikan, Samatha Vipassana. With Sh, meaning the thing that you see on stop signs, Sh. And khan means like seeing. So Tom Cleary translates it as stopping and seeing. But it's also concentration and penetration. Or stabilization and contemplation. Or stability and insight. Those are all translations of the same word. So when we... So when we unite those, not only is there an aspect of offering through compassion from awakeness to awakeness, but we're doing this in more and more challenging ways because it's just like any other skill in the conventional sense.

[21:49]

Let's say you learn how to drive by driving in a parking lot with your dad. Okay? And then the next, when you're ready, when you're done with that, when you've figured that out, you're ready to drive around your own block. And when you've done that, you may be ready to drive to the store. I don't know if you remember what it was like to drive to the store for the first time. I drove to the store. Dad, I drove to the store. Or Mom, or hey, friend, I drove to the store. Okay, well, what do you want to do Saturday night? So there's a progressive element to sitting in meditation as well. And it means that what we experience in Zasen is not some sort of beauteous unity of...

[22:50]

stabilization and insight, what we're actually experiencing is all the problems that come up. Okay? In particular, we experience moments of not getting what we want or something dying that we wanted to last or all of those things which we're suffering. And then... What our conditioned mind wants to do with that is either self-mortification or self-indulgence. I don't know if the more experienced sitters have this experience or whether you just sit there in bliss. I was just asking, just in case. Again, I want to meet that person who does just sit in bliss. But basically what we experience is moments of self-mortification or self-indulgence, how we throw out our experience or get too deeply involved in it.

[24:00]

And so we actually have the opportunity to experience firsthand how suffering arises. As Dogen Zenji says in the Genjo Koan, the Genjo Koan is it's a fascicle about the intimate meaning of everyday experience the mystery the public mystery of everyday experience which is the true the true meaning of it and Dogen Zenji says it's Buddhas who are enlightened about delusion It's deluded beings who are deluded about enlightenment. Okay, so we may have all kinds of ideas about what's going to happen to us in zazen or in an intensive, but what we actually experience is the ways we mess ourselves up, usually.

[25:05]

And that's another lecture to talk about how we mess ourselves up and how we penetrate that. But basically what we do is that we cling. And we build up, through clinging, we build up ways of thinking and action that don't address the fundamental problem, which is how we suffer, instead of just registering our experience and appreciating it. So basically zazen is the Buddha's method of throwing us into the pool and teaching us to swim. Okay? First in the baby pool and then as time goes on in the grown-up pool or in the ocean. Okay?

[26:08]

So I'd like to talk about the Buddha's first teachings about this. because I think that they're the most succinct expressions that I've ever read or heard. And they help us understand this being thrown into the pool and learning how to swim, or as somebody said at breakfast the other day, Zazen is surgery without an anesthetic. It's open-heart surgery without an anesthetic. And one person said, it's so skillful that it doesn't even have a knife. So please adjust yourself. If you're overworking to sit up straight,

[27:09]

please adjust yourself. If you're underworking to sit up straight, please adjust yourself. Make contact with the ground and sit up firmly so that you can, with extension, but also with a width or a sense of depth in your body so there's a sense of enjoyment as well as just discipline. See if you can refresh this postural attitude again and again. I'm just going to read some of the, some of this Dhamma Chaka Pavatana Sutta, the sutra of the first turning of the wheel. And anywhere that Buddhism is practiced, all over the earth, most people have heard of this sutra. It's very, very important, particularly in Southeast Asia and It's recited again and again, and it's a very important sutra for us.

[28:14]

I wish I could say it in Pali or in the Buddha's home language, Magadi, but I can't. I don't know it. So how this happened was that the Buddha... had been storming the ramparts of his defenses with ascetic practices and had been pitting one part of his mind against another. Excuse me. He had made a pact with four Dharma buddies that they weren't going to eat or drink very much or sleep very much. And he ended up... changing colors and becoming emaciated and weak. His hair was falling out. Then he realized that he was making a mistake in his practice. And he remembered a time when he was a child when he was neither experiencing intense bliss nor was he experiencing intense sorrow.

[29:34]

when he was just sitting under a tree and was very happy in a non-hysterical way. And he said, that's the state that I really need to understand the human condition. So with that in mind, he went down to the riverbank and washed, which was against his pact with the other monks. And then a young girl, Sujata, was walking by with a bowl of rice cooked in milk that she had just made. And she offered it to him and he ate it. And so thus, refreshed, he sat down under the Bodhi tree and realized awakening that night. And he sat for a week and then decided that he was going to teach. And on his way to... back he had decided that he was going to talk to his buddies and on his way back he found them and sat down and they said they addressed him as friend because they didn't realize that he had woken up and he said don't say friend don't use my name Gautama I've woken up

[30:57]

And they didn't believe him. They said, you, how could you who broke your pact and ate and drank and totally messed up be anything other than a friend? We're not going to address you by fancy title. And he said, no, really, I really have woken up. I'm really fully self-awakened. I'm enlightened and I'm worthy. Listen, I found nirvana that's free from death. And I can teach you. I can say what it is. And if you do what I did, you will soon realize the highest dhamma. And which is our actual goal. And that's actually how we want to live. For the sake of which... We rightly have gone forth into homelessness. And he convinced them.

[32:02]

He repeated it three times. And then he said, just think, have I ever talked this way before? Have I ever spoken this way about myself? Have I ever done these apparently crazy things? And they said, no, you haven't. And they became convinced that he had something to talk to them about. Then he spoke. Monks, there are two extremes that should not be followed by one who is leading the life of a monastic. What two? Devotion to sense pleasures is one of the two. It's vulgar. It's not noble. It has no connection. with our discipline, the observance of which would bring us deathlessness. But there's another extreme, which is the devotion to self-mortification, refusing to eat proper or enough food, living without clothes, and so on.

[33:11]

This brings forth only bodily suffering. It is not the noble practice of the awakened ones and has no connection, whatever, with our discipline. the observance of which would bring forth deathlessness. By avoiding the two extremes of self-mortification and self-indulgence, the Tathagata, which is the Buddha, has gained the knowledge of the practice of the middle way, which opens the eye, produces the knowledge, causes the calm, the special knowledge, enlightenment, and realization of nirvana. And then he taught the Noble Eightfold Path. Okay? And he said that through that we can realize nirvana.

[34:18]

Now what is the knowledge? What is the... And he spoke about the four noble truths that he had personally found out by practice of the middle way. So what are they? This, monks, is the noble truth about ill that may be rightly understood by the awakened ones. Birth is ill. Decay is ill or suffering. Sickness is ill. Death is ill. Likewise are sorrow and grief woe, lamentation, and despair. To be conjoined with things which we dislike, to be separated from things we like, that also is suffering, not to get what one wants. In a word, this body, this fivefold mass, which is the object of grasping and which has taken on the wrong view of I, me, and mine, is all suffering. But there's a truth about the seizing of ill that may be rightly understood, which is the utter seizing of the three forms of this thirst, this giving up, this forsaking, this release, this disentanglement from thirst.

[35:35]

Now, what's the truth about the practice that leads to the seizing of suffering? It is the noble, eightfold path, right view, right aim, right speech, right act, right living, right mindfulness, and right concentration. Okay? So the ceasing of the ill is the ceasing of the form of thirst, which is the lure and lust which lingers longingly, now here and now there. So it's a craving for sensual pleasure, the craving for life, and the craving for ending of life. So the ceasing of ill is the ending of thirst. And the practice that leads to the ceasing of ill or suffering is the Eightfold Path.

[36:37]

So that is the Buddha's first teaching. And I just have a little bit more to say, and I hope that it's understandable. I want to say a little bit more about self-mortification and self-indulgence, because not only are they things that come up in the practice of zazen, but they're also philosophical and religious speculations leading to paths that were current at the Buddha's time. So one of them is... called mortification. And it had to do with a certain metaphysical theory of the nature of human personality. And basically it's annihilation. Mortification is a kind of annihilation practice which is a rigid adherence to

[37:44]

hitting one part of the mind against another. And I don't know, I don't want to put it down because, in fact, the Buddha's words about this are just that it's unprofitable in the end. He didn't put it down and say it was bad, just that it was unprofitable because it leads to an overly tightly held body and mind for the actual realization of the truth. And the other side was a loose approach to human personality, kind of a self-indulgence or materialism that basically taught that there was nothing beyond this life, so we should gather flowers while we may. And these both have names that I won't burden you with. But basically the idea is that One of them comes from craving for being, and the other one comes from craving for non-being.

[38:51]

And these are actually expounded in the next teaching that the Buddha gave, which was the Kachayana Gota Sutta. I don't have time to talk about it now, but it's about existence and non-existence. And the resolution of that was in the Buddha's understanding of Prachitya Samudpada, which was the co-arising, the dependent co-arising of everything, which means basically when this arises, that arises. If this doesn't arise, then that doesn't arise. So basically it's a statement of hope that says that suffering is conditioned, and because it arises, if you take away its causes, it won't arise. So that the suffering that we experience now is a result of past choices, And if we make different choices now, that suffering will be avoided in the future. Not avoided by denial, but avoided because it won't even come up.

[39:54]

So Greg taught a class about the Four Noble Truths recently, in which he used a metaphor that has been used classically. And that is that of illness, diagnosis, What is the state of wellness? And what is the prescription or treatment? Okay, so suffering is the illness. And just like when we're ill but we don't know what it is and want to know the cause, the cause is actually the thirst or the attachment that we have to various states and various things. That's the diagnosis. that the thirst is the real illness that creates suffering. And the well state is of someone who is not bound by this thirst or craving or confusion about craving or aversion, which is the mirror image of craving.

[41:00]

And the prescription or treatment is the path. And the craving can actually be interrupted The suffering can actually be interrupted at various places in the cycle of suffering and re-suffering that would otherwise continue. So there's so much more that I could talk about. Types of suffering and so on. But I think I won't. In the spirit of the... simile of the arrow that the Buddha taught. That if someone shot you with an arrow, would you care much about who shot the arrow or how long it was or what color it was? You wouldn't care about that. You just have one thought. Get it out.

[42:04]

So I'd like to offer a poem about concentration from a great Tang dynasty poet called Wang Wei. And if you listen closely, you may hear the story of the end of suffering in this poem. In my middle years, I've become rather fond of the way. I go alone into the forest to see the things that only I can see. I follow the stream to the source and sit and watch the clouds come up. Or perhaps I meet a woodsman and we laugh and sing and forget the way home.

[43:22]

Thank you very much for your attention. May you be happy, well, free from suffering, and the sources of suffering. May our intention

[43:46]

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