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. So this weekend, I've been leading a, I guess we call it a seminar or a retreat or something, teaching Suzuki Roshi's teaching. commenting on and expressing my understanding of Suzuki Roshi's teaching. Is this loud enough? A little more. A little more? A little more? Okay, so I'm going to use that, continue doing that this evening. So I'll give you a little taste of what we've been doing. So this is a talk of Suzuki Roshi's that's pretty short.

[01:24]

But it's one of my very favorite talks, and I talk about it a lot. And I've talked about it here a bit. But all the phases have changed, so most of you have never heard it. So that's okay. But this short talk really is kind of an epitome of Suzuki Roshi's teaching and his understanding. It's called Caring for the Soil. That's the way we translated it. So he says, most of us study Buddhism as though it were something that was already given to us. You think about that. There's Buddhism and there's us. And it has all the doctrines of Buddhism in the book and so forth. And we think that that's Buddhism originally. But actually, that's just a picture.

[02:26]

Studying the scriptures. studying the history, studying mostly is a picture. Of course, the picture is important. Picture is very important. But if we only study the picture, we don't get the dharma. We get the picture of the dharma. So, Suki Roshi was, his effort was to allow, to put us in a position where we could access the dharma, our own dharma, as each one of us has the whole dharma within us. And practice is to bring it out, not to pour something in. Information is not what it's about. It's about how we deal with the circumstances of our life and our surroundings as our true self. So most of us study Buddhism as though it was something that was already given to us.

[03:34]

We think that what we should do is preserve the Buddhist teaching by putting food in the refrigerator. Then, to study Buddhism, we take the food out of the refrigerator. Whenever you want it, it's already there. Instead, Zen students should be interested in how to produce food from the field from the garden. So, the field and the garden, you can say that, you know, an actual garden, actual field, but the field is our self and the field is our practice and the garden is what is already inside of us. There's a saying to how does that go?

[04:35]

To practice the Dharma in the garden of the heart. So, he says, all of us have Buddha nature. This is the ground. And the teachings that grow from Buddha nature are similar to one another. In other words, all of the Buddhists, there are 12 schools of Buddhism. And each one approaches the Dharma from a certain aspect. Nichiren taught the Dharma from the point of view of the Lotus Sutra. Shinran taught the Dharma from the point of view of Amitabha, chanting the name of Buddha. Dogen taught us to practice the Dharma from the ground of being. and with zazen as the center of the mandala of our practice.

[05:38]

You know, when I think about it, everything is a mandala. Every person is a mandala. We have the center of our body, and when we sit, for example, Our legs are like the roots of a tree, firmly planted in the ground. And then our upper body is like the trunk. And the solar plexus is a little bit above what we call the hara, but it's close enough. So solar means sun. So our body and mind is like a copy of the universe. our universe. We have the sun spot, the sun at the center of our body, and the satellites are our limbs and fingers and toes, things like that.

[06:46]

So we are kind of a copy of the universe, of our universe in that way. And the solar plexus and the hara, hara is means something like the sea of ki. Ki means breath or fundamental. So breath is a fundamental thing. And it's also the seed of intuition. Intuition means directly touching without going through the process of thinking. We place a lot of emphasis on thinking, of course. we're doing it all the time, whether we want to or not. It almost is as constant as the blood or the breath. So it just goes on. And when we sit in zazen, the mind is always, our thinking mind that is, is always putting out something whether it's important or not.

[07:55]

But in zazen, the only thing that's important is zazen. At that time, we make a vow. I'm going to sit for 40 minutes without moving. That's our vow. Simple. But then, you know, all these thoughts come flooding into our mind. So, that's not what we asked for. We didn't promise, I'm going to sit here and let all these thoughts come. They just come. And they mean something or they don't mean something. Thinking mind needs something to attach to. puts out some information, like a dream, and then we follow its line and we get caught by our thinking mind. So in Zazim, we try not to get caught by our thinking mind. So we just let these thoughts come like a flood and just keep going. Goodbye, hello, goodbye. Hello, goodbye. Hello, goodbye. But as my old teacher used to say, we let them in, but we don't serve them tea.

[09:00]

So this is the fundamental. You know, when you're out in the freezing Arctic and your limbs are all freezing, the energy comes down to there. All the rest of your body can freeze off. but all the blood and heat go to the solar plexus because that's the most vital part beyond the thinking mind. It's the seat of intuition, the seat of directly touching. The mind, thinking mind is very important, but that's not the thinking mind. The vital place is the hara of the solar plexus. So, So he says, instead, Zen students should be interested in how to produce food from the field or the garden.

[10:14]

I don't know why I said that other thing, but it's true. All of us have Buddha nature. And the teachings that grow from Buddha nature are similar to one another. That's what I read. The teachings of different schools of Buddhism do not differ so much, but the attitude towards them is different. When you think that the teaching is already given to you, then naturally your effort will be to apply the teachings in this common world. So, to apply the teachings of Buddha in this world, that's nice, but it's not the essence. For instance, So he talks about various, he says, Theravada students apply the teaching of the 12 links of causation. Ignorance leads to will, leads to mind, leads to name and form, the six senses, contact, acceptance, love, attachment, being, birth, death, and so forth.

[11:21]

The wheel of life which creates suffering. Mahayana understand, and we learn to how we, I'm sorry, and to our actual life, to how we were born and how we die. Mahayana understanding is that the original purpose of this teaching, when Buddha told it, was to explain the interdependency of different things. So I don't want to explain what that all means, but it's there. Buddha tried to save us by destroying our common sense. Usually we're not interested in the nothingness or the barrenness or the emptiness of the ground. Our tendency is to be interested in something that is growing in the garden, not in the bare soil itself.

[12:22]

But if you want to have a good harvest, the most important thing is to make the soil rich and cultivate it well. The Buddha's teaching is not so much about the food itself, but about how it is grown and how to take care of it. So Buddha was not interested in a special deity or in something that was already there. He was interested in the ground from which various gardens will appear. For him, everything was holy. There was nothing special. that is not any holier than anything else. There's nothing that is more holier than thou, so to speak. But I have a little story that I'll tell you about that. There's a little fable. Once there was a farmer. And the farmer had three sons and a daughter. Maybe two daughters.

[13:25]

I'm not sure. And then he had quite a large farm. Big farm. And he said, kids, I'm about to go. And I bequeath all this wonderful land to you. And you should know that somewhere on this land is a buried treasure. And then he died. So, the kids looked at each other, and they said, well, okay, let's start digging. So they dug, they dug, and they dug, and they dug. They dug the whole thing up, and there was no treasure. So they looked at each other, and they said, well, let's start once again. Okay. So they took up their shovels, and dug, and dug, Doug, Doug.

[14:26]

And when they got to the end, there was no treasure. And they looked at each other and said, one more time. Pop was not a liar. So they dug, and they dug, and they dug. They got to the end. Nothing. So they said, well, it's spring. Let's sow the ground. Go about our business. So they sold the ground, went about their business. And then when April and May came, they had the most abundant harvest they ever had. It was just like overwhelming. And then they looked at each other and somebody said, do you think this is what the old man was talking about? So this is a perfect example of taking care of the ground. Never mind the treasure. You do not know, we have no real understanding of what the treasure is.

[15:32]

This is Zen practice. You have no idea what the, we think that enlightenment is at the end of the rainbow. But for us, enlightenment is at the beginning of the rainbow. We start Our practice begins with enlightenment and includes delusion. So we start with, what brings us to practice? What is it that brings us to practice? What brings us to practice is our enlightened mind. Why else would we come to practice if it wasn't for our enlightened mind? Just some curiosity. Well, that's okay. We don't know. We're not sure that our curiosity... is an expression of our enlightened mind. So instead of thinking about what's at the end, we're just thinking of what's here now.

[16:39]

So this is called, or I guess we could call it, right now practice of enlightenment. We have no idea of the future and we don't need to rely on the past. How do we do something in the present that includes everything? So that's why Zen practice is very simple. It's not complicated at all. It's kind of dumbbell practice. Yeah, it's for simpletons. You should talk about that. You have to be a kind of simpleton to practice Soto Zen. Because you can't figure it out. And whatever you figure out is not right. You just have to go along as a dummy. Just do the practice.

[17:46]

Just dig the hole. just wash the dishes, just sweep the floor. God, you know, it's like, what? If you go to Japan, there are many famous monasteries, and when you go there, you see the monks sweeping and raking all day long. I remember Suzuki Roshi, when he lived at Page Street, Zendo, Their room was on the street. And in the morning, the students would go outside and sweep the sidewalk. And he said, I just love that when they're sweeping the sidewalk. It means they're sweeping their mind, cleaning their mind. So Zen practice is cleaning your mind. brainwashing.

[18:48]

So that each moment is a new moment without any or very little or as much as you can anything in your mind that's carried over. So the day starts with zazen. After you brush your teeth and do all that, you go down and sit zazen. And that's you coming to zero. You start with zero. Because in zazen, it's just zero. There's no intention other than to sit zazen. So people, when I give zazen instruction to people, I say, every time you sit, give yourself zazen instruction. Every time. It's not like, oh, I know what zazen is. And you easily forget how to actually sit. So if you give yourself zazen instruction intimately, as if you were talking to somebody else, then you have good zazen.

[20:01]

Because you'll be able to let everything go by. Your posture is good. Your breathing is deep. And when you get up, you have energy, a lot of energy. and you start your day from zero. And that emptiness, that empty aspect, I don't want to say accompanies you or goes with you, it is you throughout the day and within all of your activity. That's the place where you always go. It's characterized by deep breathing. To actually practice is to always be aware of where your breath is, the bottom of your breath, which is just below the solar plexus in the hara.

[21:07]

And when you inhale, the hara expands to take in the breath. And when you exhale, that collapses to let it out. So this is inspiration when you inhale, coming to life. And it's expiration when you breathe out, or when breathing goes out, because you're not really breathing. And that's letting go of everything. And when you inhale, you take up everything. You take up your life. And when you exhale, you let go of everything. And that rhythm is the rhythm of the universe. The universe is breathing you. This is cultivating the ground. The ground is our Buddha nature. And we don't expect anything to result from it.

[22:10]

And we don't expect anything to result from it. We get a lot of wonderful results. Beautiful flowers and so forth. Wonderful vegetables. Just do the digging. Just do the practice. That's called having faith in our nature. We may not have faith in our nature. But if you continue to practice, it will appear. And you'll understand it and realize it. You know, faith has a kind of, a lot of different connotations in our culture. And so we, sometimes only to use the word, you know, because it smacks of religion. But unfortunately, it is. Unfortunately, whatever. So faith is not in something.

[23:14]

It's like in your true nature, which is connected to everything. So when we let go of our attachments to the future and the past and the present, we allow our nature to, the deep nature, to express itself. So Zazen is self-expression. Self-expression. And we call it an expressive practice. Because our deeper self is being expressed. Because we allow it to be, we take away all the blocks, the thought coverings. which actually block our true mind, our big mind. And when we practice in the zendo, in the practice periods, when there are no guests, we eat in the zendo.

[24:24]

And we eat around the periphery here for the students, and we're served. The serving crew comes out with the pots and pans, and the pots... and they set the pots down and we give them their bowl and they fill our bowl. And often the servers come and when they fill your bowl, they take the food off the top. And so I scold them. I say, go down to the bottom. When you're serving, go down to the bottom. There are two reasons for that. One is the heavy stuff always sinks to the bottom. And all you get off the top is water. So that's one reason. The other reason is, this is your practice. Even though you're serving food, what you're doing is observing your practice. And when you observe your practice, whatever you're doing, you go down to the bottom. And find good stuff down there.

[25:29]

And Ken Togon, Togon Tos says, fish swim lazily. down at the bottom of the ocean, of the water. Birds fly high in the sky. So, Buddha did not think of himself as a special person. He tried to be like the most common person, wearing a robe, begging with a bowl. He thought, I have many students because the students are very good, not because of me. Besides, Buddha was great because his understanding of people was good. Because he understood people, he loved them, and he enjoyed helping them. Because he had that kind of spirit, he could be a Buddha. So this is actually Suzuki Roshi's autobiography. Yeah, it's a good description of himself.

[26:45]

So I don't want to keep you from going to bed. 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, visit sfcc.org and click Giving.

[27:21]

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