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. We're here at Zen Shinji. Zen Mind. Zen Mind Temple. Zen Mind Temple exists because we are here. Because each person here is manifesting Zen Mind. Without people here practicing, there would be no Zen Shinji, no Zen Mind. So this is a big wonderful opportunity and also big responsibility.

[01:05]

So I invite you to completely take up the practice of Zen Shinji, of this place. Taking up the practice of this place is something that you can always do wherever you are. Many places, however, it's not so clear. What is the practice of this place? Is it a wholesome practice? How to find the true practice of this place is often pretty confusing and challenging. Here at Zen Shinji, we've been making an effort for, I don't know, Some years. Let's see. This is the 90th practice period. So we've been making an effort. In between every couple of practice periods, there's been the summer practice period.

[02:11]

And there have been the work periods, those intervals. And all this time, people have been making an effort to clarify what is the practice of Zen Shinji. So in a way, it's very simple here. Very simple because there's so much support and so much form that's offered. Probably for the most part, you can pretty much trust the practice that's laid out. So we say, follow the schedule. The main thing here, follow the schedule. And why do we do that? We follow the schedule so that we discover what it is to be present. Moment by moment, when the bell rings, when the Han sounds, we do that practice.

[03:17]

This is a practice that I think was very exciting for for Suzuki Roshi to come here, visit this place, discover that this potential existed here. This is a very unique place geologically, geographically. I think of it as a power spot, a spiritual power spot. Some of it has to do with hot springs. Some of it has to do with that there is another creek that comes in and opens up the valley here. Some of it has to do with there's cold springs. Some of it has to do with the steepness and ruggedness and rockiness of the place, the mountains. And some of it has to do with the fact that it is the end of the road.

[04:23]

Isn't it great to know you've come to the end of the road? So everything can be resolved here at the end of the road. Any confusion that you have can be resolved here at the end of the road. And it's also great that I was just so happy yesterday. I thought, isn't it great? that we can live through our whole day and our whole week without having to use any means of transportation except our own two feet. That's rare, very rare these days. A lot of people don't have that sense of being able to have their whole life in walking distance. So this is, in a way, if you consider most of human history, most of human history, people's lives were in walking distance.

[05:39]

Maybe sometimes in horseback, horse walking distance. But even that, walking distance. Even in the original settlement of America, the little towns were usually no more than 5, 10, 7 miles apart. So there would be walking distance. Basically, on your everyday life, you would be able to do everything you needed to do within that proximity. So there's something very ordinary and almost forgotten about having a life that's so simple that we can walk it. So I mostly feel a tremendous gratitude. Tremendous gratitude to the mountains for offering this place.

[06:49]

For the for the hot core of the earth offering the hot springs to everything that comes with it blue jays included ground squirrels even the ground squirrels don't we have a do we have a sutra in the works right for the ground squirrel ground squirrel sutra I think you've been working on at least some of the notes for that for a while. So this place is offering teaching. This place is a teacher. Every aspect of this place is a teacher.

[07:51]

And that includes, of course, everyone here. Everyone here is teacher. And it includes everything inside oneself. All the parts of oneself known and unknown as teacher. In Zazen, we become one with the environment. Of course, we're already one with the environment. but there is a sense of this practice of becoming completely knowledgeable and intimately familiar with this permeable sense of where is it me and where is it the environment. So a practice of gratitude, I suggest every morning here to remind yourself.

[09:05]

Hear the wake-up bell where your alarm goes off. And just sit up. Put your hands together. Gratitude. And then you might think, for what? I'm... I don't want to wake up. I'm too sleepy. The night was too short. I didn't sleep all that well. So to have gratitude for all that, even gratitude for not sleeping so well, that's a kind of a judgment. But whatever your experience is, gratitude for this experience, to be able to be aware of what's happening right now is enough. to be grateful for so each day to start the practice to start your first waking moments with the thought of gratitude is something I offer to you as a suggestion to take up now it may seem a little clunky you know but any practice is clunky so that's Hinayana

[10:26]

Hinayana is clunky. And clunky is wonderful. And we really need it. We need particular kinds of practice. So I'm going to read a little bit from Suzuki Roshi. This is taken from commentary on the Genjo Koan, Dogen's Genjo Koan. Just last year we had a book come out that was Genjo Koan, three commentaries, with Nishiari Bokasan's commentary, Suzuki Shunryu's commentary, and Uchiyama's commentary. So it was wonderful to me to have a chance to look at that.

[11:34]

It was actually Sojin Weitzman Roshi and Dai Ryu Wenger who collected various comments on the Genjo Koan that were embedded in different talks that Suzuki Roshi gave. So this is the opening words. The secret... of all the teachings of Buddhism is how to live in each moment, how to obtain absolute freedom, moment after moment. So there you have it. The secret. Isn't it great to be let in on a secret? The secret of all the teachings of Buddhism is how to live in each moment how to obtain absolute freedom, moment after moment.

[12:34]

So when I say, you know, this is the end of the road, this is the place to completely resolve everything, this is the place to discover absolute freedom, moment after moment. He says, moment after moment, we exist in interdependency with past and future and all existence. In short, if you practice Zazen, concentrating on your breathing, moment after moment, you will be keeping the precepts, helping yourself and helping others and attaining liberation. So this is the The short path, right? Quick path. In short, I'll repeat that. In short, if you practice zazen, concentrating on your breathing, moment after moment, you will be keeping the precepts, helping yourself and helping others and attaining liberation.

[13:48]

So this is very, very important. And when I talked a little bit last night about the value of studying the foundations of mindfulness, this is a support, maybe a clunky support, for doing exactly what Suzuki Roshi is saying, concentrating on breathing moment after moment. So while you're here, while we are here for this ango, 90 days, a little bit less than 90 days, this is our fundamental practice, to know what you're doing moment after moment. And because of the nature of the human brain, which keeps producing thoughts, often tantalizing thoughts,

[14:56]

that we begin to believe in, we have the experience of losing track of the present moment. Sometimes people lose track of the present moment for their entire lifetime, never even having the recognition that there's some discontinuity. But I think everyone here is here, partly because you at least have recognized that discontinuity. The break between your own ideas about what is and what is. So we say that this is a practice of just this, of what is. Suzuki Roshi said,

[16:00]

I like to put it as seeing things as it is. Seeing things as it is. So for myself, I was, in a sense, kind of a very frustrated, angry person. And somehow I got the idea, this was, I was living in Chicago and I was in my... early 20s. And I was, I somehow was, I was really upset by all the suffering in the world and the suffering that I saw around me and the suffering in my relationships with people. And it occurred to me that I can't even see what's going on. I can't even see what's going on because it's My mind is full of ideas before I can even see what's going on.

[17:05]

So I took up the clunky practice. I'm enjoying the word clunky this morning. I took up the clunky practice of photography. And I invested in it and I got good cameras in it. And I'm looking through the viewfinder. single lens reflex camera should show exactly what I'm looking at and what the camera's seeing, right? Looking through the same lens, snap the picture, take it, I was using, mostly doing black and white, going into the dark room, developing it. That's not what I thought I was seeing. There are other things in the picture, things I didn't even notice, you know. Well, the way I was seeing it was I was I was preferring one particular part of the view and being completely unaware of other things. Some things had a particular meaning for me and other things didn't.

[18:09]

So as I was studying this more and more, at some point I realized it's time to put down the camera and just nakedly see what's in front of me. So on working with that, I started stopping. And as I would stop, you stop with a camera and you stop, take a frame. But sometimes then without the camera, stop. Okay, what is it? What is here? More and more I noticed how much my own mind, my own prejudice, my own thinking intervened with what was... in front of me. And then I had some fortunate, say, guides. Someone handed me the book, Three Pillars of Zen, said, maybe you'd like this.

[19:13]

And I took it up and I started sitting zazen. And then eventually found my way to San Francisco Zen Center. So I'm still making this effort to see things as it is. So Suzuki Roshi is saying that Zen is our entire life activity, moment by moment, not diverting, not clouding, not resisting, and not being kind of sucked in but actually seeing what is and then being helpful so this is bodhisattva practice in the sense that bodhisattvas are vowing continuously vowing to be helpful helpful to everything realizing itself

[20:24]

So when you light the candle, you strike the match. You're actually helping the match realize itself. You're helping the candle realize itself. You're helping the flame realize itself. Realize itself in the moment of its manifestation. So each thing, working, cooking in the kitchen, picking up the pot, serving the food, picking up the pot, taking the ladle. The ladle is realizing itself by your participation. There is no ladle until you actually...

[21:34]

ladle with it. There's actually no ladle. There's just ladling. Consider how things are manifest and how you participate. So you yourself as a server don't exist except serving. So the ladler is The ladler and the ladle and what's being ladled are all manifest in that moment. So this is this ongoing practice to see things as it is. And what I discovered was the primary problem for seeing things as it is is fear. Very difficult to see things that I'm afraid of. Very difficult. Very difficult to see things in myself that I'm afraid of.

[22:41]

Or things that I'm afraid of may show up not as fear, but it may show up as I just don't like it. Or it may show up as some tension in the body. I'd rather not have that tension in the body. It may show up sitting zazen. It may show up as a pain in the knee. Very familiar. Pain in the knee is very familiar to people who sit zazen. But then, is it pain? What is it? Pain is a word. What is the sensation? Is it possible to be completely intimate? with the sensation. How is it that fear gets involved? Fear about the future. If this doesn't end in another minute, I can't stand it.

[23:47]

I might die. I think I will die. I know I'm going to die. So this should be an indication, oh, I'm involved in the future. Suzuki Roshi is saying this is the practice of moment by moment, this moment. This is that for whatever reason, just as I was walking over here, I was thinking about fear and I thought of... that we are all, let's say, on a, I can almost say, a bodhisattva, great heroic practice. Everyone here is doing a great heroic practice.

[24:51]

And at the same time, completely ordinary, nothing special practice. But great heroic practice, like, then I thought of, Luke Skywalker. Maybe most people here have heard of Luke Skywalker. The movie Star Wars came out in the 70s sometime. Does anyone know? 77. So I didn't really know. I was at Green Galch, and I didn't see it until later. I saw one movie, I think, in eight years, and that was Invasion of the Body Snatchers.

[25:52]

But anyway, Luke Skywalker... And later, so it wasn't in 77, it was later. Then there was the movie, because Yoda wasn't in the first movie. But then, I think in the next movie, Luke Skywalker is training. He wants to be a Jedi, knight, hero, right? And he tells Yoda, I'm not afraid. And Yoda says, hmmm. something like, you will be, you will be afraid. So I think I can say that for you here at the end of the road. You will be afraid.

[27:02]

sometime this practice period. If you don't have fear, if you don't actually have fear, then you're not doing this practice. Bodhisattvas actually take up the practice of meeting fear. So, one way. So, the Mahasadipatthana Sutta, the great Mahasadipatthana Sutta, the great Mahasadipatthana Sutta, the great Mahasadipatthana Sutta,

[28:19]

foundation or abiding establishing upatana mahasaripatana so when Suzuki Roshi says concentrating on the breath moment by moment this is informed by the teaching of mindfulness So although we don't have any particular goal or state to attain, because we are already fundamentally enlightened Buddha nature, right? Buddha nature, this understanding and this lineage is that Buddha nature is already completely here.

[29:20]

We don't have to go anyplace. So to be completely here is a practice of concentration. To be completely present is a practice of concentration. So it's helpful to have this body as a human being to be grateful for this body. We just chanted the fruit of many lifetimes. Many, many, many, many lifetimes. Billions of lifetimes. Many, many beings have lived and died offering themselves, supporting this moment of awareness. This moment of being conscious. This is a whole conscious body. This whole body is consciousness.

[30:26]

So the four foundations of mindfulness begin with body. So the four, just to remind you, the four are awareness, mindfulness of the body. That's the first one. Second is mindfulness of feelings. a feeling, which really includes perception. Because perception has to form a sense of what is experienced in order to have a feeling. But the feeling is attending to feeling in the sense of positive or negative or pleasant or unpleasant or neutral. So just knowing whether a feeling is pleasant or unpleasant or neutral is feeling.

[31:31]

That's the second foundation. The third foundation is states of mind. States of mind, not just in the sense of a thought, but in the sense of the whole being, the whole body-mind. Is this a wholesome state? Is it an unwholesome state? And this includes all the samskaras, all the emotions. Different schools of Buddhism have different lists of states of mind. But this is a bodhisattva approach. So we should be willing to wake up with any state of mind. The fourth foundation of mindfulness is a kind of a series of Dharma teachings, classical Dharma teachings.

[32:37]

So it's understanding the whole world in the sense of Dharma teaching. So you will find there a list of various lists, the Four Noble Truths, the Five Hindrances, the Seven Factors of Enlightenment. and so forth are laid out there for mindful consideration so that it's helpful to understand what is a hindrance. It's helpful to understand what is a factor of enlightenment so that when you're sitting you know what So the Mahasadipatthana Sutta is found in the collected long discourses of the Buddha, the Diga Nikaya, as I mentioned last night.

[33:37]

And if you don't know any other, if you never study any other Pali or Sanskrit texts from the classical Buddhist canon, I would say, this is the one that would be most useful. So I think Zen people really should be well versed in the practices of mindfulness. Now when we said Zazen, we are usually given simple instruction. First of all, to compose the body. So in Fukanza Zengi, Dogen talks about composing the body. That's really what he focuses on. Suzuki Roshi is then talking about breathing, concentration on breathing.

[34:42]

So in this section of establishing mindfulness of the body, in the Satipatthana Sutta, it is first, awareness of the body, and second, awareness of breathing. I'm going to read the intro. This is a translation that's Maurice Walsh's translation. Thus have I heard. Sit comfortably. So you can listen. If you're in too much pain, it's hard to listen. Thus have I heard. Once the Lord, so the Lord, the Buddha, once the Lord was staying among the Kurus, there was a market town of theirs called Kama Sadama, and the Lord addressed the monks.

[35:45]

So from now on, instead of monks, I'll say bodhisattvas, because we're bodhisattvas. However, we're also monks here, while we're here. at Zen Shinji doing the monastic training practice here the way I like to use the word monk is when doing the monastic practice one's a monk just like when one is ladling one's a ladler the Lord addressed the bodhisattvas and they replied Yes. Actually, what it says here is that they replied, Lord, or Buddha, or Tathagata. And the Buddha said, There is this one way to the purification of beings, for the overcoming of sorrow and distress, for the disappearance of pain and sadness, for the gaining of the right path,

[36:57]

for the realization of nirvana. That is to say, the four foundations of mindfulness. What are the four? Here, a follower of the way abides contemplating body as body, ardent, clearly aware and mindful, having put aside hankering and fretting for the world. And also, when I read this, I'll change protons. Pronouns. I don't have to worry about changing protons. That's happening automatically. Having set aside, hankering and fretting for the world, she abides contemplating feelings as feelings. She abides contemplating mind as mind. contemplating mind objects as mind objects ardent ardent clearly aware and mindful having put aside hankering and fretting for the world I like that word ardent has to do with heart but it actually has to do with a dry heart if you look at the root of the word it's kind of like a thirsty heart ardent

[38:24]

really, really completely, enthusiastically committed to, you know, water, to blood, to what is nourishing, ardent. So then it goes on more specifically. How does a follower, so I changed it from monks from bhikkhus actually in the original Pali to follower of the way or bodhisattva. How does a follower of the way abide contemplating the body as body? Here, one having gone into the forest or the root of a tree or to an empty place or the end of the road or tasahara sits down cross-legged holding one's body erect, having established mindfulness and keeping mindfulness alert.

[39:32]

Mindfully, one breathes in. Mindfully, one breathes out. Breathing in a long breath, one knows that this is a long breath. Breathing out a long breath, one knows that this is a long breath. Breathing in a short breath, one knows that this is a short breath. breathing out a short breath. One knows that this is a short breath. One trains oneself, thinking, I breathe in, conscious of the whole body. One trains oneself, breathing out, conscious of the whole body. One trains oneself, breathing in, calming the whole bodily process. One trains oneself, breathing out, calming the whole bodily process. Just as a skilled turner or apprentice in making a long turn knows she is making a long turn, or in making a short turn knows she is making a short turn, so too a practitioner of the way in breathing in a long breath knows one breathes in a long breath and so trains oneself

[40:50]

breathing out, calming the whole bodily process. So then there's much more repetition even than that. But this is, you know, skilled turner, maybe this would be a person working on a lathe. So there's this piece of wood turning. And one is really paying attention to right at the point where one is having an impact on the piece. Once having an impact and shaping that. So there's a tremendous concentration right on the point of the edge of the tool, a little chisel or a little awl, whatever one's using to shape that. So right there to have that point of concentration. So just as one is maintaining that, then as you move down the piece, you gotta sustain that concentration. So for the whole breath, This is a practice then of noticing, first of all, once one has established the body sitting, and establishing the body sitting means to find a stable base.

[42:07]

It means to be sitting upright. It means to be seeing if you can be at least moving towards being in alignment. That is, completely centered, beginning with your pelvis. I was talking to someone about this earlier today, that the pelvis should be in a neutral position, neither tilted forward too much or back too much, so that the sacrum is in the position and the lumbar vertebrae stack up. So to actually have that sense then, it's helpful to concentrate on the back and feel the awareness. Now for some time, I couldn't even feel all of the sections of my back. It actually took, I don't know, a long time training to feel that, to actually become aware of all of the vertebrae of my back.

[43:15]

So this, each person is different. And some people have much more of a kinesthetic sense coming to this practice than others. It may be an advantage to not have much sense. Because then you really have to work hard. And then you appreciate, you know, discovering. So whatever, you know, sitting in a chair, lying down, this... Matter of alignment is very important. Alignment then helps to free the whole metabolism so that the ribs can move with the breath. There are debates, there are historic debates among Buddhists

[44:17]

Where you should be paying attention to the breath? Should you pay attention to the nostrils? Should you pay attention to the belly? Should you include the whole body? In Soto Zen practice, Soto Zen includes everything. At the same time, it may be helpful. I'd say working with your practice leader or teacher, it's helpful. to bring up. What is your focus intention in Zazen? And how is it going? Where am I concentrating with tension? So usually we say, concentrate your attention here in the Hara, in Zen. Put your mind here. So you should be aware of breath here. The movement of the abdomen with the breath, picking up the in-breath.

[45:23]

And usually I say find where you most notice the whole sensation of the in-breath as it moves through, as your breath fills your lungs. Your lungs go from down here all the way up to here, under your collarbones. A lot of people don't breathe with the whole lungs, right? It's helpful at the beginning of zazen to exhale completely. There's still some air left in there? What's it like to exhale completely? It's helpful to do that a couple of times at the beginning of zazen. You can make a little bit of noise. at the beginning of zazen but then so that refreshes your breathing and then let your breathing happen and your breath there are many things happening with the breath it's tremendously interesting each breath is new

[46:45]

never happened before all the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas are trying to help you breathe completely freely all of your ancestors so this practice may also be noticing how one's habits interfere with the breath. So then what do you do when you notice that something is interfering with the breath? So this is a practice of seeing what is as it is. So if you notice something interfering with the breath, You see it as it is.

[47:48]

You address the question. You investigate it. You investigate it enough to see what it is. Investigating it does not mean thinking about it. It does not mean going back and trying to figure out where it came from. does not mean trying to change it into something preferable. It means simply to see what it is, which is a friendly, say more than friendly, it's a compassionate, compassionate response. So anything around the breath and the breath itself Whether it's a long breath, let it be a long breath. If it's a short breath, let it be a short breath. If your breathing is really constricted, let it be constricted.

[48:58]

If you feel tension in your throat or you notice you're breathing more through one nostril or the other, just notice it. So there's a big measure. trust here cultivating trust by cultivating trust in the breath that the breath has its own wisdom cultivating trust in the breath is establishing confidence in true nature or maybe discovering and cultivating confidence in true nature. This is to say that this universe right now is the Dharma field, the field of nourishment.

[50:13]

This universe right now, this whole universe, this whole field right now is a field of nourishment. Supporting you in so many ways that you can't even begin to conceive of. It's inconceivable. So wonderful. So that means to fully appreciate exactly what this breath feels like right now. There may be a wish to have a different kind of breath. There may be some doubt. Oh, am I breathing correctly? This is just a way of helping you know your own delusions.

[51:23]

Helping you to know the attitudes and predispositions that you're bringing to this practice. So this practice then, moment by moment, is to fully avow all ancient twisted karma. So we'll say that every morning. All ancient. I remember having a big discussion. Someone said, twisted is just too much. We shouldn't be saying twisted. How about tangled? Tangled karma. Some people think tangled is not so bad. I don't know. I think tangled can be pretty bad. Sometimes I think of it as DNA.

[52:26]

It's got the twist. Of course, there's also chubby checker. Do the twist. So do the ancient twisted karma. Do the ancient twisted karma that you're already doing. You have to do it. You're doing it. The fact that you're doing it is what is, right? So it's a kind of, you know, it is a delusion or a pretension to think, oh, I don't have any ancient twisted karma. I don't have any DNA. I'm free of all that. But it's actually that that is our connection with everything.

[53:30]

The environment that exists within us and outside of us. I was looking at... Speaking of DNA, I was looking at... Oh no, it was an article written in... It was pre-printed in various places, but an article... I'm trying to think of the name of the person who wrote it, and right now it'll come back. Florence, Florence Kaplow. Some of you know Florence. Florence Kaplow wrote an article, and she talked about, because she's a biologist, she talked about being in a class in biology, and she felt okay when they say, you know, that we share... whatever it is, 98% of our DNA was chimpanzees. But then when it got down to we share 26% of our DNA with yeast, her mind was blown.

[54:46]

It's like, what? More than a quarter of our DNA, same as yeast. They didn't know you were that intimate when bread, right? Maybe baking bread, right? How intimate. Sharing the DNA. So a long time ago, maybe our yeast ancestors and our human ancestors went with some separation, but still some continued to do yeast, right? Others did something a little more adventurous. Maybe. Who's to say what's more adventurous? So, avowing this ancient twisted karma is to accept one's own DNA, right?

[55:53]

people may spend a lot of time. I, myself, have wasted many, many, many hours wishing for different DNA. A different body. It would be easier if I were shorter. It's even hard getting in and out of certain cars, right? It would be easier if I were shorter. Some people wish, oh, it'd be easier if I were taller. Maybe if my eyes were a different color. Maybe if I wouldn't have whatever, these congenital defects that I'm going to die from and I don't even know what they are at some point. People are now doing more research into, you know,

[57:05]

Now that we really understand a little bit more about the evolution of our own bodies. Thank you, Kitchen. Now that we know a little bit more about our own bodies, some people put a lot of energy and investment, and I think it makes sense to take care of your own body, to have information. So it might be helpful to know if you have some markers in your DNA for alcoholism or diabetes or certain kinds of preventable diseases or diseases that we call them diseases, dis-ease, things that

[58:09]

that are conditions of dis-ease in the body. So it may be helpful to have some of that information. And it's helpful in this moment, moment by moment, to pay attention to what is happening in this body so that one can take care of this body. So in some ways, our Zen practice is very practical, very practical. Just keep finding out what you need to know to take care of what you have to take care of. And so taking care of this body is the first foundation of mindfulness. When you read the text you will see there's a whole list of all kinds of different parts of the body. And sometimes it's presented as disgusting, right? various fluids we don't like to think about going on in our digestive tract.

[59:20]

But all that is to be regarded with equanimity. Every part of the body, every part of the body is here. from the wisdom of the whole system. Many, many, many, many beings have lived and died for each part of the body to be what it is. So this is something to be deeply grateful for. So notice a tendency you might have to spend time in zazen or any other time thinking about, oh, just desiring a different body. Or feeling resistance to experiencing the experience of this body and the feelings that come up in this body.

[60:37]

So to know, thoroughly know what's happening moment by moment, this establishing mindfulness of the body is liberation. There's no liberation apart from this moment. being completely willing to be present this moment. So catch yourself thinking, oh, there's some other universe, some other place. So many people misunderstand nirvana, thinking, oh, nirvana is someplace else. Or nirvana is a different state of mind. Nirvana is being completely present with this state of mind.

[61:45]

Right now, it's always available. Every moment of this practice period, it's at no distance at all. from oneself. So concentrating on this breath is a touchstone. The breath is, say, maybe most reliable, most reliable touchstone. The sensation of the breath is always available. That's always fresh. It's always in the present moment. So again and again, come back to this breath. Right now, appreciating it.

[62:52]

Mindful, attentive, ardently, intimately, completely, completely, fully participating. not anticipating, participating. So there's no you and no breath. You and breath, one. This one, breath, one. That's, say, fully participating. So, things come up and intervene. We wonder, you know, there's confusion.

[63:56]

The kitchen people just left, but I wanted to mention, there's a kitchen story that Ed Brown likes to tell as Tenzo. One more story and then I'll stop. Tenzo, new Tenzo, Tassahara, maybe the first or second or third practice period. And Ed keeps going to Suzuki Roshi and saying, what should be the practice in the kitchen? And Suzuki Roshi said, when you cut the carrots, cut the carrots. When you stir the soup, stir the soup. So Ed would go back to the kitchen and concentrate on cutting carrots, stirring soup. But he was a Tenzo, so he was also asking other people to cut carrots and stir the soup. And sometimes he noticed that they had some attitude.

[65:00]

I don't know what that could possibly mean. Some attitude about how to cut the carrots or not wanting to cut the carrots again today. Or not diligently stirring the soup, getting distracted and wandering off. Or not even showing up on time. So he went into Suzuki Roshi and he said, I have these problems in the kitchen. There are people in the kitchen who are not doing what you're saying. They are not cutting the carrots and they are not stirring the soup and they're not showing up on time. And they're getting angry at me for telling him what to do. And I'm getting angry at them. For getting angry at me. Something like that. So Ed, telling the story, said, you know, so I was expecting Suzuki Roshi to say something like, yeah, good help is hard to find.

[66:13]

But instead, Suzuki Roshi this time said, it takes a calm mind to see virtue in others. And Ed says he felt like objecting, like, you didn't understand. You didn't understand the problems I've got to deal with, right? But he took that as a practice. I think he's still working with it. It takes a calm mind to see virtue in others. So this calm mind, I just want to refer it back to the satipatthana. So this is the last phrase is breathe out calming the whole bodily process.

[67:26]

Breathe in calming the whole bodily process. And then it concludes each section with this kind of insight. And so one abides contemplating body as body internally contemplating body as body externally contemplating body as body, both internally and externally. One abides contemplating both arising and vanishing phenomena in the body. Or else, one abides with mindfulness that there is body, is present to one just to the extent necessary for knowledge and awareness. So mindfulness that there is body, just to the extent necessary. One abides independent, not clinging to anything in the world.

[68:30]

And that, bodhisattvas, is how a practitioner of the way abides. This practice period, we say, we say practice period, the Japanese name Ongo. Ongo can be translated as peaceful abiding. So this practice that you're invited to take up is the practice of this temple, practice of this practice period, is the practice of peacefully abiding, mindfully aware, moment by moment. So please do your best and keep coming back to this. This is maybe a little clunky to have some phrase in mind, but it may be useful when you feel like, oh, you're getting lost, I don't know what I'm doing.

[69:39]

Come back. Mindfulness of the body, mindfulness of this breath. Thank you, and good luck. 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 SSCC.org and click giving.

[70:14]

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