This podcast is offered by the San Francisco Zen Center on the web at sfzc.org. Our public programs are made possible by donations from people like you. Good morning. Can everyone hear me all the way back? Welcome everybody and welcome to people who are I hope that this will be a wonderful experience and you'll come back many times. So this talk is about the harmony of difference and equality. It's about eating too many cookies. And it's about the middle way. This is a book called Branching Strings Flowing in the Dark. And it's a collection of lectures or talks that Suzuki Roshi gave at Tassahara in the year 1970.

[01:07]

And it was about a poem by Sekito Kisen, a Tang Dynasty practitioner, a poem called Sandokai, which means, one translation of that poem, title is Harmony of Difference and Equality. We recite the Sandokai actually every Monday here in morning service. In addition, when we have our monthly memorials for Suzuki Roshi, we also recite it. So it's a very familiar very familiar to all of us who practice here at Green Gulch. I'm going to talk more about this, but right now I just want to mention something that is in the preface or the introduction by Mel Weitzman to this book.

[02:13]

He discussed a conversation that he had with Suzuki Roshi about some terms that he used. One term was... independency, which if you look up the dictionary, you won't find it. And another term he used was things as it is, which if you think about it, kind of doesn't make a lot of sense. But Sugi Roshi used these to express some interesting ideas. So things as it is, he expresses idea of many and one. at the same time. And when he says dependency, he's talking about the fact that we are independent, and yet at the same time we are dependent. I just want to say that in my opinion,

[03:22]

And maybe you won't think the same thing, but I think the most important idea in this talk about the middle way is finding ways between two contradictory ideas, like meaning in one, like dependent and independent. Suzuki Roshi told Mel that the secret to Soto Zen is yes, but. We are independent, yes, but we are dependent. We are many, yes, but we are one. And we'll come back to this. But now I want to talk about cookies. You have a plate of cookies. And you take one and you eat it. It is really good. And so you take another one. and eat that one, it's pretty good too. And then, so you say, I'm not gonna, that's nice, I won't have any more. But then, pretty soon, you take another one, and you take another one, and you get down and take one and look, and there's only one left on the plate.

[04:29]

The last cookie on a plate in Italian, excuse me, I'm going to, I'm going to, I'm going to mangle the language, but there's a saying about the last cookie on the plate. And I'm sure I mangled that, but that means the morsel of shame. So for a while you resist this morsel of shame, but finally... So you are so ashamed. You vow never to do that again. Yet a few days later, there's another... plate of cookies, and you do the same thing. Which brings us to the middle way. In India, approximately 2,500 years ago, there were groups of people called sramanas.

[05:36]

They were itinerant beggars. They were seekers after truth. who performed acts of austerity. They were ascetics. This was a kind of a religious movement that lasted many, many hundreds of years. And it was kind of inspired by the Vedic Hindu religion, but it rejected ritualism and the authority of the Brahmins. There was one... One of these mendicants was named Gautama, Siddhartha Gautama, and he was the son of a prince. He had given up a life of luxury and ease to find the truth about old age, sickness, and death. So he became a wanderer, he begged, he studied yoga and meditation with two teachers,

[06:40]

It finally ended up with five fellow ascetics who decided they were going to starve themselves and mortify themselves. They were going to, yeah, they were going to fast and they were going to practice self-fortination and they were going to find truth this way. He did this for a while and he almost died. But then one day he said, this isn't working. And so he sat down under a tree and he says, I'm not getting up until I figure this out. And so he sat there and meditated for a long time. And as you know, when he looked up one morning and saw the morning star, all of a sudden everything became clear. So for a while he sat there and real happy and in bliss, but finally he decided he should go and spread the word. And so he went looking for his five friends and... to tell him about what he had found out. I'm going to read you from a sutra about what he said.

[07:48]

He said, monks, these two extremes ought not to be practiced by one who has gone forth from the household life. There is addiction to indulgence of sense pleasures, which is low, coarse, the way of ordinary people, unworthy and unprofitable. And there is addiction to self-mortification, which is painful, unworthy, and unprofitable. Avoiding both these extremes, I have realized the middle way. It gives vision, gives knowledge, and leads to calm, to insight, to enlightenment, and to nirvana. So he was saying that there is a middle way between indulgence and abstinence. He went on to explain what we've now called the Four Noble Truths. Life is unsatisfactory, it is suffering, it is dukkha. This suffering dukkha is caused by craving things, like cookies. There is a way to stop craving and escape suffering, and there is a path to find this escape.

[08:57]

This path, called the Eightfold Path, includes ways... of understanding, ways of acting, ways of concentration, which taken together lead one to freedom. So how does the middle way relate to cookies? You are addicted to cookies. By the way, maybe you're not, but I am kind of, so this is a kind of personal thing. I could have chosen other things to talk about. I have a friend who is addicted to gambling, and she goes and spends her whole paycheck at the casino the first week she gets it. And you know other people who have different kinds. But I chose cookies because that's personal. So you found that if you start eating cookies, you just gorge yourself. Probably you eat, because you eat them, you probably enjoy them less and less, but you don't stop. And after doing this, you suffer remorse.

[10:04]

Yes, you suffer remorse, but denying yourself the cookies is also suffering. So where is the middle way here? Eating just half a plate of cookies or just having three cookies. The middle way is trickier than that. You cannot practice the middle way with just cookies. You have to practice the way with your whole life. So let's say you come to Green Gulch and participate in a one-day sit or maybe a sashim, and you sit all day, and about 3.30 in the afternoon, there's someone who rings a bell, and some people come in with tea, and they also give you a single cookie. And it is really good. You savor the enjoyment of this cookie. It's wonderful. Far beyond the enjoyment of the ones that you were going to yourself with last week.

[11:11]

It's wonderful. You can eat just one cookie and be satisfied. But then you go home, and a few days later, your craving comes back, and you're right back where you started. Mere willpower doesn't work. You find, as Peter Schreff puts it, that when I take control, I lose control. This is an alarming yes, but. Perhaps you come to realize that finding the middle way between indulgence and absence is not enough. You have to find a middle way between self-control and no self-control. The middle way requires... living and interacting with the world in a completely new way. The simple craving is just a small part of what makes our life unpleasant. As the Buddha said, there is the reality of old age, sickness and death.

[12:17]

There is separation from those you love, associations with those you loathe, the specter of impermanence, the problem of finding your true self. It turns out that the middle way deals with other distinctions besides that between indulgence and abstinence. This is where yes, but comes in. There's indulgence, yes, but there's abstinence. There's self, yes, but there's non-self. There's eternalism, yes, but there's nihilism. There's existence, yes, but there's nonexistence. There's dukkha, but then there's nirvana. There's relative, and then there's absolute. I think this is the most important part of this idea in this talk. The middle way is a way of not reconciling, but going beyond, transcending seemingly unreconcilable problems in our lives.

[13:24]

Sometimes this means refusing to say that something is or is not. I want to give you two examples of some place where we have a problem and you can't express the solution. Gil Fransdale wrote an essay about self and no self, and this is one of the things he said. Contrary to popular conception, we have no record of the Buddha ever saying there is no self. In the entire preserved volumes of the Buddha's discourse, in only one place did someone actually ask the Buddha, is there no self? The Buddha refused to answer the question. The same person then asked, is there a self? And the Buddha declined to say that too. Here's another story, and I'm going to fracture someone's name, but I'm going to tell it anyway. This is a famous poem called, Dao Wu Won't Say.

[14:26]

Jian Wan, I don't know if that's the way to say it, but you got it. Jian Wan wants to accompany his teacher, Dao Wu, on a condolence call to a family funeral. When they arrived, Jian Wan tapped the coffin and said, is this life or is this death? Dao Wu said, I won't say life, I won't say death. John Wong says, why won't you say? And Dao Wu said, I won't say, I won't say. So on their way back home, John Wong said, you should say it quickly to me right now, teacher, or I will hit you. And Dao Wu said, hit me if you will, but I won't say. So John Wong hit him. The story goes on from here, and there were consequences. for John Wong, and it took him many years to understand Dao Wu's answer. But the point is, the Buddha and Dao Wu both are pointing to the non-expressivity of the middle way.

[15:34]

Making certain distinctions or definitions could only confuse things. As if you were to ask your teacher, is there some way that I can stop craving cookies? And the teacher says, yes, there is, but I'm not going to tell you. You're going to have to find out for yourself by practicing the middle way. Suzuki Roshi, in the branching streams that I'm going to talk about more, Suzuki Roshi said this, to practice is not to collect things and put them in a basket, but is to find something in your sleeve. Which brings us to the Sandokai and Suzuki Roshi's commentary on it. So the English translation of Sondakai, at least one tradition is the harmony of difference and equality.

[16:35]

The sutra begins, the mind of the great sage of India is intimately transmitted from west to east. While human faculties are sharp or dull, the way has no northern or southern ancestors. So the great sage divinity, of course, is Sakyamuni Buddha, but maybe you're not sure about what the northern and southern ancestors were. There was two, at the time that this was written, there were two schools. Zen or Chinese Chan had separated into two schools. One was called the Northern School, and they believed in careful study of the sutras and of talking slow and steady progress towards understanding. And this other school believed that there was instead you should have a sudden enlightenment. Either Sekito Kisan or Suzuki Roshi, by the way, believed in this dichotomy.

[17:50]

There is a story about a Zen monk named, and here I'm going to again, I'm going to factor his name, Chi Sien, who was a brilliant student of the sutras with much knowledge. He would have fit very well into the northern school. But one day his teacher Guishan said, Everything you say are things you have memorized from commentaries. Now I want you to say something from when you were first born, before you could distinguish things. Chi Xun was unable to do this, and furthermore, he could find nothing in his books to help him. Despondent, he burned his books and left the monastery and became a hermit. Some years later, while he was sweeping his walk in front of his hut, a pebble hit a stalk of bamboo, making a sharp sound. Shi Xun was suddenly enlightened, and he became a great teacher in his own right.

[18:53]

For Shi Xun, at least, years of meticulous study followed later by an event triggering sudden enlightenment were both needed for his realization. So which school was right? In this instance, it would seem... that both were right. The Sandokai has a main theme, the harmony between difference and equality, the many and the one, phenomena and numina, relative and absolute, ji and ri. These were all, this was the main theme, these things that didn't seem to be able, things you could not reconcile. The sutra continues, The spiritual source shines clear in the light. The branching streams flow out in the dark. So in the light we can see different phenomena. We can discern the relative G. In darkness, where nothing can be differentiated, is re, which is beyond our discernment, is beyond our consciousness.

[20:02]

But it is here in this... It's just coming together that you find the middle way. The sita goes on. In the light there is darkness, but don't take it as darkness. In the dark there is light, but don't see it as light. Suzuki Roshi said, we should not cling to the idea of darkness or light. We should not cling to the idea of equality or differentiation. He also said, Only when we live like human beings who have selfish human natures are we following the truth in its greater sense because we are taking our nature into account. I want to read you a little section that he wrote rather than just try to add a little bit here. To accept things as it is looks very difficult.

[21:07]

but it's very easy. If you don't find it easy, you should think about why it is difficult. Maybe you will say, it is because of the shallow, selfish understanding I have of myself. And then you may ask, why do I have a selfish understanding of things? But a selfish understanding of things is also necessary. Because we are selfish, we work hard. Without a selfish understanding, we cannot work. We always need some candy, and a selfish understanding is a kind of candy. It is not something to be rejected, but something that helps us. You should be grateful for your selfish understanding, which creates many questions. They are just questions that they don't mean much. You can enjoy your questions and answers. You can play games with them. You needn't be so serious about them. That is the understanding of the middle way. Finally, Suzuki Roshi said that we need to find the inconceivable oneness between the relative and the absolute.

[22:21]

That inconceivable oneness is joy and suffering. That is the purpose of our practice. So the purpose of our practice is going beyond the absolute and the relative, going beyond greed and... generosity going beyond these opposites that don't seem to come together. So we can continue to practice our practice of the middle way, being kind to our cookie fixation and to our other selfish shortcomings, and in our practice, enjoy our lives. And who knows, one day we may find that we can totally enjoy just one cookie without grabbing another. Thank you very much. Thank you for listening to this podcast offered by the San Francisco Zen Center. Our programs are made possible by the donations we receive.

[23:27]

Please help us to continue to realize and actualize the practice of giving by offering your financial support. For more information, visit sfcc.org and click giving. May we fully enjoy the Dharma.

[23:48]

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