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, everyone. Thank you for being here today. Silly. to give a Dharma talk when there's a baby here. We could all just turn and watch the baby for an hour. But it's not the baby's turn yet, I suppose. Anyway, thank you all for coming and making the trip. out to Green Gulch Farm. Many familiar faces.

[01:05]

Those of you who I don't know, my name is Jiryu. I'm the abiding abbot here at Green Gulch. So today I wanted to pick up and turn and chew with you a line from Suzuki Roshi that has been on my mind. So I'll just jump in with this line. Suzuki Roshi, of course, our Japanese founder of San Francisco Zen Center, of which Green Gulch is a part. says if you do not have the spirit of repeating it forever if your everyday life is not based on this kind of spirit of repeating it forever you cannot cope with the problems you will have day after day so I often feel in encountering Suzuki Roshi like he's looking right at me

[02:28]

And in this line, he is looking right at me. It catches me, of course, because I long to know how to cope, how to cope with the problems that I have and will have day after day. The small problems and the great problems, the personal problems and the community problems. You should have known. I didn't know, and still for some reason I said yes. So the societal problems, deep, painful, intractable, devastating societal problems, the global problems, how will we cope? How do we cope? Maybe in part that question brings all of us to the Buddha Dharma or to a meditation hall.

[03:30]

How will we cope? What is the path of dealing with the suffering that we have and will have day after day? It also, I think, catches me for the bluntness of Suzuki Roshi that somehow... He encourages us by saying something very discouraging. The problems you will have day after day. Doesn't your heart sink a little bit? Like, come on, Suzuki Roshi. I'm on the Buddha path. The problems are going to end. You told me in the last chapter. Maybe you mean if. If my problems will continue day after day. But still, somehow it's reassuring to just hear, you know, you will have problems day after day.

[04:36]

There's something encouraging about that, maybe because now it's dawning on me that these problems really are unceasing. Maybe it's just that I'm old enough now to realize that there's no end to the problems. It's time for me to learn to be with each problem rather than waiting for them to run out or figuring out where I could be that didn't have them or that had better ones at least. So we have this Han, this wooden board that sounds calling us to Zazen and it says great is the matter of life and death. Being alive is A great is an amazingly big deal for us. And life is passing.

[05:37]

It's fleeting. It's gone. Even as you say the words, they're gone. So don't waste time. So I feel, I reflect on my life, my present, and my past, and I notice this wasting of waiting for the problems to be over. Imagining how great and peaceful and bright everything will be when the problems finally run out. This sense that I'm about to get it. I'm about to find peace and joy and energy and practice. I'm about to touch this actual fact of being alive to know it completely in my bones. to be amazed, to realize the Buddha nature to fully be in my body in a minute.

[06:45]

There's just one or two little problems or big problems. There's something that needs to get out of the way and I'm almost there. I can taste it. So that's a waste of time. Long time goes by waiting. the path to clear so of course our way the buddha way the zen path is to meet moment after moment our problems as our life has our Buddha nature, has our wisdom and compassion. Every single problem. Again and again, over and over. So, if you do not have the spirit of repeating it forever, if your everyday life is not based,

[07:57]

On this kind of spirit of repeating it forever, you cannot cope with the problems you will have day after day. So in this context of this line and this talk, he's talking about a practice which I've often shared. Many of you have heard me share or maybe read it yourself. This practice of clearing our mind, he feels that it's and teaches that it's very helpful to clear our mind. of everything that we don't need. And we don't need anything in our mind. So this practice says, just clear the table. Just clear the table completely. There's some leftover wrappings and tin cans and stuff. Just clear it. They were good while you were using them. But just clear the table. Clear the mind. Not because anything that was in it was bad, but because Our practice is to share the feeling of being alive with the mountains and trees and people and rocks and walls and tiles.

[09:11]

To share the feeling we have for being alive with everything. And to share in the feeling that everything is extending to us. I... have not stopped talking about this practice pretty much since the moment I heard it because it's so beautiful to me to share the feeling of, to share this feeling of being alive with everything just as our body, as our being, and then to share in what's being offered to us. It's kind of the same thing. We're sharing this feeling of being alive with everything, moment after moment. But it's hard to appreciate because our mind is so cluttered. It's fine that the mind is cluttered. It's just if we want to do this practice of sharing this feeling of being alive, noticing that we are alive, sharing that feeling and sharing in the feeling, it helps to have the clear mind.

[10:26]

And his point is, you can't just clear your mind once. Like yesterday, I cleared my mind. It was great. That doesn't, it's moment after moment after moment. We must have this spirit of continuing forever, clearing and clearing and clearing in order to share in and share in this moment as it keeps changing. So anyway, that's the practice that he's talking about, and it's definitely worth practicing forever. But more broadly, I think this statement, this kind of statement, applies to any of the practices that we might do. Any of our spiritual or ethical or life practices, awareness practices. Now that you have this practice, whatever it is, are you up for doing it forever? repeating it, continuing it forever.

[11:27]

That's the spirit that he's pointing out. In another place, he says, he seems to like this phrase a little bit. He says, when we think about how to cope with the problems we have in our everyday life, we realize how important it is to practice Zazen. Usually when I think about how to cope with problems in my life, I just get tired and discouraged. But he says, if we really think about, geez, how will I cope with these problems? We'll remember that Zazen, some practice is necessary. If we're not really facing our problem, it maybe seems like some practice isn't so necessary. When we really have this question, how will I get through? How will I cope when we draw on something strong and deep, like Zazen?

[12:32]

And I love this about the Buddha Dharma, this simplicity, straightforwardness, that we have a problem, and wouldn't it be good to get some support in coping with that problem? We have all of these great sutras about these cosmic Buddhas that we could one day become manifesting, becoming these bright, Buddha beings manifesting wisdom and compassion, realizing the great earth and the vast sky as just this very human body, attaining the way, realizing enlightenment. And, or in the meantime, just coping with our problems. Maybe we would settle for that. how to cope with our problems. So Buddhism is here to help us with that. First, by not scolding us for having a problem.

[13:36]

So the Buddha Dharma, the Buddhist teaching, comforts and reassures us in our problem. Of course you have a problem. That's why Suzuki Roshi can say you will have a problem because he knows the Buddha's teaching is you have a problem. And you will have a problem. We have a problem. So when you have the problem, the Buddha says, yeah, I told you you would have a problem. The Buddha does not say, geez, what's with you? How come you have a problem? You must not be practicing this thing I taught you. That is not what the Buddha is saying. The Buddha is saying, yeah, you have a problem. That's right. There is no problem. There is no way of being alive that doesn't have a problem. That's what he's been teaching from the start. There's something that doesn't have a problem. We could talk about some other time, which is called non-existence. So anyway, that's if there's no condition of being alive that doesn't have a problem in it.

[14:47]

So it's not a problem that we have a problem. not something to feel bad about or to scold ourselves about. It's not some sign that we're practicing incorrectly. And of course, fundamentally, the cause of this problem is our loyalty to the illusion of separation from everything around us and each other and our constant flailing in the waves of wanting something we don't have and not wanting something we do have that's how life always is so i think the problem you know I strongly encourage students of Buddhism to not think that this logic runs backwards.

[15:58]

So we hear that there's a path and then there's liberation, which is fine and good, but then we put it backwards and we say, the fact that I'm suffering is confirming that I'm not on the path. So it's not really, I think, the right question to ask, what am I doing wrong? I ask myself this all the time, and people talk to me about their practice, ask this all the time. I'm suffering. What am I doing wrong? Yeah, maybe I've said enough about that. That you were born. According to the Buddha, what you did wrong is being born. So now you have it. Now you're born. Now you're suffering. You're not doing anything wrong. There is a question that the Buddha is inviting us to ask, which is, how do I tend... to this suffering that I have right now? That's a totally different question. And maybe studying the causes of my suffering will be helpful for how I tend.

[16:59]

But the question is, how do I tend? How do I care for? How do I meet this suffering that I have now? So first we embrace and accept and fully meet our suffering, our problem. We don't shrink and blame ourselves for having the problem in the first place. So the spirit of repetition is necessary. If you do not have this kind of spirit, or if your everyday life is not based on this kind of spirit to repeat it forever, you cannot cope with the problems you will have day after day. So somehow if I can, appreciate or realize this constancy, this repetition, then it will be easier to cope.

[18:03]

Our practice with the problem is not a one-time thing. It's ongoing. And that our idea that it's a one-time thing is intimately related to the trouble we have coping. So I was exploring this in myself and aware of this feeling like kind of complaint that, give me a break. I just had a problem. I just had to welcome some difficulty. I just had to practice generosity and ethical discipline and patience and energy and concentration and wisdom. I just had to practice this with a problem. Ugh, stop. How should I? It's not fair that I have to do it again. I just did it. So that's this feeling of lacking the spirit of repetition. And it makes it very hard to cope because every problem we're like, oh my God, this again.

[19:03]

I have to be kind and generous and welcome and wise again. What a drag. I just did that. But if we have the spirit of I am up for this over and over, I want to do this forever. Because what could be better than this practice of welcoming, this cultivation of wisdom and compassion? So one of the things that I've noticed, in part because people like my wife have pointed it out to me, is that I tend to feel put upon. Maybe you know that feeling. Put upon. It's like, how could you even ask reality me to have this problem? Not just the problem that I have the problem, it's that I shouldn't have to deal with this. So that's exhausting. The problems are exhausting, but even more exhausting and more actionable in a way is this attitude I have of, I shouldn't have to deal with this problem.

[20:14]

lack the spirit of just joyfully meeting, joyfully continuing forever. And then, of course, when I'm complaining about the fact that there's a problem, I don't even think this thing should be happening and nobody even could expect me to be Taking care of this. It's unreasonable. The problem that I have now. No reasonable person could expect me. To have to deal with this problem. So. It's very easy to be half-hearted then. About my care. Nobody would fault me. For being half-hearted with this problem. Because. I mean. So. Mostly. In me, this attitude is connected to this feeling of, will the problems just get out of the way so that I can be fully alive?

[21:27]

Will the problems get out of the way so I can realize this actual fact of my life? So I've noticed, I want to share this idea that self-pity and self-compassion are not exactly the same thing. And maybe the put-upon feeling, it's a little bit the self-pity kind of feeling. I have a problem that I shouldn't have to have. The compassion with that same difficulty sounds more like, I am suffering and I'm right here for my suffering. I'm listening to my suffering and caring for it, meeting it, and I'm frustrated that I'm suffering. I'm sad and tired and frustrated to be suffering again. And I'm here for that. I'm open to that.

[22:28]

I'm welcoming that, listening to that. That's compassion. It's different than just complaining about my suffering. So I was remembering this morning about a time I was walking up the garden here at Green Gulch, from a visit to my teacher who lived in Mir Beach at the time. And I had this kind of body resonant idea that Buddhism means stop complaining. This was a teaching for myself, not a teaching for someone else. This is me walking in the garden, realizing, To be a sincere and serious practitioner, the Buddha way is inviting me to stop complaining about reality, my life.

[23:30]

So that really resonated in me as an intention or as some wisdom. And it has this idea of Buddhism is about not complaining, about being compassionate rather than complaining. that has what we call a near enemy, a pernicious, unwholesome, unhelpful neighbor that sometimes masquerades as this virtue. I wanted to explore that a little bit. And the image that came up to explore that through is a sign I saw at the tire shop in San Rafael. Maybe some of you know. The tire shop, it just changed owners recently. Very different feeling in there. So there was a sign on the table at the tire shop that said, no whining.

[24:34]

Or it may have said whining, and then it had a red, you know, with a splash through it. And it was an awful, an awful thing to have on the table at the tire place. What does that mean? Who is that for? And what does that mean? Who's deploying that? Who put that there and why? What are they protecting? So it sounds like cutting off, denying something. It's a kind of silencing, letting people know that they shouldn't expect to be heard. Don't expect to be heard here. Just shut up, actually. So it seems really quite toxic and probably sexist, you know, when you think about who is most accused of whining. So if the boss puts no whining on the table, you know, I think he's being defensive.

[25:38]

He wants to insulate himself from feedback, and he's not calling his beloved employees and customers into their deeper, more spacious self, saying, you know, Can you make room to welcome this without being caught by your suffering? It was more like, I don't want to hear about it. So that's the near enemy of don't complain is I don't want to hear about it. Get over it. Stop it. Compassion is there is room. This is welcome. I'm not complaining that this problem is arising. I am welcoming this problem as my life. as the only life I have, the only time I have to appreciate my life. So I don't think this sign is without its wisdom. I just think it's not stated correctly. So I was imagining some other signs that we could print out and suggest that they switch.

[26:43]

For example, welcome. Welcome. We know this might be a difficult day for you, given your car's perhaps unexpected tire issues. Please consider touching your most spacious and compassionate self and make room for your suffering without being caught by it. For the benefit of yourself and all suffering beings, you have our support in this journey. Deep and difficult practice. Well, it's kind of a lot of words for the sign, but I'm actually kind of glad that they've closed now because I would feel, now having said it, I would feel like I would sort of have to try that and see what they said, but I'm off the hook on that. I think it's maybe the same message or that...

[27:46]

That speaks to the wisdom of this message. We don't want to be caught. We want to have room for our suffering. We want to not just react and complain that our life is how it is. And it's hard when the tire has problems. Especially when there's another problem. I need the tire because the kid, you know, there's already a problem. And then there's this other problem. Of course I'm going to whine that it's two hours and I don't have an appointment. So another more concise sign, I thought, was notice shanti paramita is practiced here. Here we practice the paramita of patience, of spaciousness, of tolerance. So shanti paramita is our virtue or practice of sometimes called forbearance or endurance, a kind of hard word.

[28:47]

Spaciousness. allowing, welcoming, having room for difficulty, one of the six paramitas, or core virtues of Mahayana Buddhism. So bodhisattvas, those who are committed to living for a more healed and at peace and at ease world, have this vow to practice this kind of tolerance or patience or spaciousness. A classical image of it is of salt and water. Many of you also have heard this image. Thich Nhat Hanh shares it from the teachings of the Buddha, that if you have a cup of salt and you pour the cup of salt into a bowl of water, the water won't be...

[29:49]

won't nourish anything. You can't drink it and you can't offer it to anyone. But if you take that same cup of salt and put it in a wide river, then you and beings can still be nourished by the water of that river. That, I think, really captures the spirit and the feeling of Kishanti Paramita, of spaciousness with difficulty. So our usual habitual response to suffering is to try to reduce the amount of salt that's coming into the bowl. And Kshantiparamita is suggesting that there's another variable here, which is how much water. So the practice, you know, of course, whenever we can reduce the amount of suffering flowing in, anything we can do to minimize this tide of problems coming at us, please,

[30:50]

do it and probably there are things we can and should do but we hit the limit and the salt will keep coming in so then we get very frustrated because we think that's the only variable but this image allows us to see that also we can become more spacious we can practice and cultivate the being a little bit of a wider i don't know if not river at least a somewhat larger bowl for the salt to be poured into. So when I'm complaining internally, my feeling is that I, I don't have an intention of rejecting that.

[31:52]

I have an intention of just including, including more and more. For me, when I'm complaining, it's like, okay, you're receiving something, but then you got a little stuck. You included something, and then I got stuck, including. And I sort of stopped including that enough already. So this intention I have of including more and more. It's not rejecting anything. It's not rejecting complaining or resistance. It's including. Include that I have the problem. Include that I'm frustrated and feel I shouldn't have the problem. Include my breath. Include my body. Include the sound and the light. Sensation. And as I include more and more, I notice that there's also some appreciation for the opportunity of this problem in the cultivation of wisdom and compassion and welcoming.

[33:00]

Complaining was a part, but if I keep including, there's whole other oceans of ways that it is right now. I want to close with one more example, one more teaching of this from Suzuki Roshi. He expresses this same spirit of continuing forever through his discussion of our bodhisattva vow, these endless, infinite, amazing vows that bodhisattvas take. He says, sentient beings are numberless. I vow to save them. That's our first of the four vows of a bodhisattva. He says, since the sentient beings are numberless, we will take this vow numberless times.

[34:07]

That's all. In this way, our feeling has quite a different quality. We feel the eternal practice of our Buddhist way. Sentient beings are numberless. means that our practice will continue forever. Though beings are numberless, is overwhelming. I vow to save them is overwhelming. But he says if they weren't numberless, then we would have to stop practicing. As soon as we ran out of beings, we wouldn't get to practice anymore. So what good fortune that the beings are numberless. So we get to practice forever. That's this turn. You know, if we're thinking about the outcome, the end, then we're very discouraged. I'm looking for the end of my problems.

[35:07]

And so I'm discouraged that the problems keep coming. Because, of course, my peace and well-being and awakening is at the end of my problems. So I'm concerned about the end. and I hear all beings, I vow to save them, and I'm discouraged because I don't see that outcome anytime soon. But if I'm concerned about the process as we are in Zen, it's about the practice, not the enlightenment. It's about the process, not the end. Then this infinite thing just becomes this infinite opportunity to practice, which is the part that we wanted, was never about the end. So what fortune that there's endless beings to save, and of course, likewise, endless delusions. It says, desires or delusions are inexhaustible. I vow to end them. If the purpose of this vow is to give rise to our Buddha mind, then it makes sense.

[36:13]

Inexhaustible gives us some encouragement that we can continue our practice forever. So each delusion... Thank you, kitchen crew, for taking on the problem of feeding us. I'm almost finished. If my talking is a problem for you, please know it will end soon. And then it'll be great, you know? Then your legs will be more comfortable. What will that be like? Why will... I also am looking forward to that. But I wonder what will be so great about that? I'll be a little more comfortable. What if people won't be looking at me? All right. Will I be any more alive? I have wasted this last few minutes of perfectly beautiful day.

[37:18]

not knowing for sure how many more minutes I have. Wow, just welcome, welcome problem. This is my life. The fact of my life. Oh, Suzuki Roshi said, I said last time, we're so concerned with our problem, we're more concerned with our problem than with the fact that we're alive. Wonderful teaching. But the problem is the same as the fact that we're alive. So we have no idea what to do about our problem. Zen has no...

[38:21]

has nothing to tell you about what to do about your problem. We have a path and a practice of welcoming and meeting and including each and everything as it comes. Thank you for taking on this practice. I hope that by being here, you're expressing that you are up for practicing in this way forever. And I wish and offer that any good that comes of our practicing in this way and of our practice this morning be of benefit to suffering beings. So we dedicate the merit of our time this morning, the great effort to arrive at and sit through this talk. Any merit of that is offered to the well-being of sentient beings everywhere. Thank you very much for your kind attention. For more information, visit sfzc.org and click Giving.

[39:48]

May we fully enjoy the Dharma.

[39:52]

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