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. Isn't that wonderful that I didn't turn a backward somersault there? That would have been terrible. Good save. Ironically, I wanted to talk to you about separation tonight, or a feeling of separation. Ironically, because for two reasons I feel a little bit separate. One, I just got back from a very quick trip to the San Francisco Bay Area. I just got back about 6 o'clock tonight, almost 6 o'clock. So, you know, I'm trying to get here, and you're helping.

[01:02]

And the other is that I have this weird cold which only seems to be appearing in my ears. So I feel like I'm kind of in this barrel. And I know you're out there somewhere, but if you talk, I may or may not hear you. So I wanted to read a little piece of Dogen. And as I was looking at this and enjoying... the weirdness of Dogen, what I think of as the weirdness of Dogen, it occurred to me that this may be one of those times when you can say something about your family that you wouldn't really feel good if anybody else said. Like, you know that they're crazy, but you love them anyway, so it's okay if you say they're crazy, but if somebody else says they're crazy, especially someone like your spouse or someone like that, you feel crazy.

[02:04]

sort of offended so it may be in some way my appreciation or feeling of connection with Dogen that allows me to say these things and I'm not sure where all of you are on that non-separation line so but anyway I will read this to you and some of you have heard this quite a few times from me, though sometimes I've skipped part of it, because I tend to do that with Dogen, skip the parts that I don't really want to talk about. So this time, at least I'm reading them to you. Okay. When you have unsurpassed wisdom, you are called Buddha. When a Buddha has unsurpassed wisdom, it is called unsurpassed wisdom. Not to know what it is like on this path is foolish. what it is like is to be unstained.

[03:07]

To be unstained does not mean that you try forcefully to exclude intention or discrimination, or that you establish a state of non-intention or non-discrimination. Being unstained cannot be intended or created at all. Being unstained is like meeting a person and not considering what he looks like. Also, it is like not wishing for more color or brightness when viewing flowers or the moon. Uh-oh, my cold is moving. Let's see. Also, it is like not wishing for more color or brightness when viewing flowers or the moon. Spring has the tone of spring and autumn has the scene of autumn. There is no escaping it. So when you want spring or autumn to be different from what it is, notice that it can only be as it is.

[04:16]

Or when you want to keep spring or autumn as it is, reflect that it has no unchanging self. So there's several things here. The first is just, to me, this is like the crazy Uncle Dogen. When you have unsurpassed wisdom, you are called Buddha. When a Buddha has unsurpassed wisdom, it is called unsurpassed wisdom. What is he trying to say? Okay, fine. Not to know what it is like on this path is foolish. Okay. I mean, you know, really? I assume that he's saying here that it's foolish because it's so simple. And that's one of the main points that I want to bring out tonight is the way he's describing unsurpassed wisdom here is very simple.

[05:20]

So in that way, not to know it is foolish because it's very simple. It's very close to us. What it is like is to be unstained. This unstained means not to be colored with a view of separation. And I think another way of saying it is not to be... not to have... the view that there's a different reality than is here so not to be colored by this this sense that things could be different so I just want to say right here at the beginning that this does not mean that we can't have imagination and it doesn't mean that we can't have a vision

[06:26]

of how things could be, or imagination, you know, like in some kind of artistic way or in some kind of living with people way, imagination or vision. Those things are fine, but not to confuse those things with it should be that way right now. You know, like the way it is right now is wrong or not accurate. You know, those two go very closely together. It's like... To say that I would like to change something here or I have an idea for how to change something for the better or to act that way is a little different than saying this saying or feeling, which is a little less conscious, this is not the right way. This is not right, what's happening right now. So we get into some trouble right there.

[07:28]

We can think, I can see some way this could move towards some more beneficial way. But to think, this is not right, and maybe even this isn't. The way it is right now cannot be. There's where we get into some trouble. where we separate ourselves from reality. So he goes on to say... So there's several things here. One is, this being unstained is very simple. As he says, being unstained is like meeting a person and not considering what he looks like. Also, it is like not wishing for more color or brightness when viewing flowers or the moon. So this is very simple. Most of us can do this, right?

[08:30]

Most of us, when we look at flowers or we look at the moon, usually we don't have any wish for them to be different than they are. We either appreciate them how they are or we don't even notice them. If the moon is not as bright as it sometimes is, you know, Most of the time we don't notice that. We don't notice it at all. Sometimes we really notice it. And then usually we feel some, great, there's the moon. And flowers, you know, we might have a little more opinion about flowers, but mostly flowers are good how they are too. So this is, you know, what's easy about flowers and the moon that is not so easy about other things, I think, is that they don't have so much impact on how we experience ourselves. Mostly, flowers and the moon do not give us a negative experience of ourself or an unpleasant experience of ourself.

[09:42]

So I think the thing that leads us to imagining that there could be a different way than how it is now is if we... do not like the experience we're having of ourselves. And lots of other things give us a more pointed experience of ourselves. Many things do that. Spring and autumn can do that. It gets a little more complicated when he talks about spring and autumn. Heat and cold can definitely do that. People do that a lot. People... give us many experiences of ourselves that we do not like to have. They can make us feel like they don't think we're so great. They can make us feel like we don't think we're so great. And when that happens, our tendency, our pretty strong tendency, is to avert from that experience and start imagining that there's a different way.

[10:49]

sometimes without even being conscious of that imagination, just feeling like I have to get away from this person or out of this situation or that person is a bad kind of person. We just sort of deflect from the uncomfortable, sometimes that's putting it mildly, but uncomfortable experience that we are having of ourselves to what's wrong in this story? What's wrong in this situation? Oh, there's what's wrong. Or sometimes we think, here's what's wrong. You know, this stainedness, this being stained with a view that there could be a different reality can be put onto the outside world, the the outer tangle or the inner tangle.

[11:50]

The outside world can also be put onto the inside world. So there's this very simple wisdom of a Buddha to be unstained, to just see things as they are. And again, I want to put in here, that doesn't mean Being passive doesn't mean keeping things as they are because in this next paragraph, as Dogen says, there isn't any keeping things as they are. Things are always changing. So how we interact with them is part of how they change. So it's not just being passive. This is a very active situation. This is where we and everything else is alive and changing. And then in this next paragraph, Dogen admits that being unstained is not so simple.

[13:01]

It sounds very simple when we're talking about flowers and the moon. It's very simple. Or meeting a person who you're just happy to have them be who they are. It's like meeting them and it doesn't really matter. Not caring how they... how they appear. But then he says, you know, spring, spring has a tone of spring and autumn has the scene of autumn. There's no escaping it. So when you want spring or autumn to be different than they are, just remember that they can't be. It's very simple. Just remember, spring is spring, autumn is autumn. And when you feel this urge arising that you wish they were something else, just remember they can only be as they are. And if you want them to stay the way they are, like, you know, don't have autumn turn into winter, for instance, or spring turn into summer, just remember they have no unchanging self, which is something that's pretty easy for us to realize with the seasons, right?

[14:14]

They keep rolling along. So the The realization is not hard, but the remembering that that is the case, now that might be hard. How do we remember at the time that we are in the throes of believing that there's a different way that things could be? How do we remember that things are just as they are? I actually think if we don't remember, we don't remember. At those moments when we are caught in that feeling of separation, it's very lovely to say, and actually it's very helpful to have said, to have a saying there that is, when you want things to be different, just remember they are actually how they are.

[15:15]

It's helpful to have that, but when that doesn't come to our mind, there isn't much you can do about it. The good thing about thinking, or the helpful thing, not good thing, but the helpful thing about wanting things to be different than how they are is that it gets to be frustrating or painful. We find ourselves in this... separated state where we're having a little fight with reality. We're pushing for something that isn't actually there. So there gets to be some tension there, some pain there. And usually when there gets to be some tension or pain, we start to wonder, is there something that can be done about this? Is there some way that I could be approaching this situation differently? And that's a time when, if we've heard this teaching, that things are as they are, and that if we come back to that, come back to, oh, this is actually how it is, there's some relief there.

[16:28]

So once we're asking, isn't there, what could we do that's different here, then that teaching may pop into our mind. Oh, things, this is actually how this is right now. So, and then another thing that Dogen puts in here is this paragraph about not, this is not, we don't get there by, it does not mean, to be unstained does not mean that you try forcefully to exclude intention or discrimination or that you establish a state of non-intention or non-discrimination. Being unstained cannot be intended or created at all. Very interesting statement. Sometimes we think that it's our job to create an enlightened state of mind. And that, an enlightened state of mind, would be to have no thoughts.

[17:39]

To have no thoughts. To just meet reality with no thoughts from us. intentions, no discriminations. That's a kind of common misunderstanding of Zen, which Jogen's saying very clearly right here, that's not how to be unstained. Actually, we have to. We also are an alive organism, so when we meet something, we have a response. We actually have a response. We're not just a blank slate, and then there's, you know, a beautiful flower, and we're just absorbed in the beautiful flower, or there's a difficult person, and we're just absorbed in the glow of a difficult person. We actually have our response, and that has to be part of meeting it with no imagination that there's a different way. I think that this knowledge or maybe state of being kind of sinks into us.

[19:16]

It comes to us, it might come to us sometimes very, very quickly. because of some situations, sort of get it. Oh, this is the way it is. But a lot of time it comes to us kind of gradually. For myself, it has felt sort of like, oh, that too? You know, like, oh, this practice is big enough to include everything. This is the way it is. And it's like, oh, that? It has to include that also? And, you know, sometimes the that is what people are doing. Oh, no, it's got to be, like, it has to include that, too. A lot of the time, it's my own emotions or feelings. You know, like, oh, okay, it has to include that, too.

[20:18]

And that it's just okay for that to be there. It doesn't have unchanging self, but it also is present right now, and that it's okay for it to be there. It's coming up one of the ways that I'm experiencing this now is, you know, a lot of my peers are, I'm 66, and a lot of my friends are getting to be the age of retirement. So retirement is a big topic in life. my world right now. And it has all kinds of feelings and, you know, attached to it. It's, you know, it's a big life change, but it's different than some of those other life changes that we went through. You know, like there was, there was being born and there's, you know, I have grandkids that are like one and six right now. And their life changes are like these, they're like changing every

[21:23]

day you know they're doing new things and really you know just growing by leaps and bounds and it's so obviously expansive and sometimes you know it's a little bit of a problem when my granddaughter actually 15 month old 17 month old as she can like reach for new things higher up on the shelves you know there are little problems that come with it but it's so beautiful that you can't really feel badly about any of these new stages. You can feel maybe a wisp of longing for the stages that are now gone, but it's so intriguing, the stages that are happening now. Teenageness is kind of like that, too. It's a little more intense, but still, it's a beautiful, blossoming thing. Falling in love is a beautiful, blossoming thing, right?

[22:28]

Well, retirement is a beautiful, blossoming thing, but it's a new thing that's happening. A new stage of life is happening, but it doesn't have the same feel somehow. It's very connected to the end and who am I now and do I have any worth and scary things like that. So one of my friends... has been saying she has all these things she wants to do when she retires. She wants to learn Spanish and she wants to get a real bike and ride her bike a lot and do pottery and on and on. And I said, I don't really, I don't have any idea what I want to do when I retire. And she said, do you think that's because there hasn't been any room, any time for something to come forth? I was like, well, I don't have any idea.

[23:29]

I don't know. I don't know whether there's something lurking there that would come forth if it had the chance or if there's really nothing there. So this other friend who I've really admired over the years and... sort of followed him through Zen Center for years. He was the director here at Tassajara before I was, and then he was the president of Zen Center before I was, and then anyway. And then he went off and did this really high-powered job in tech. And, you know, I don't know, made a lot of money and did a lot of things, and especially for the last five years of his work life, he had to move to the East Coast, and he was working 70 hours a week, and then... he finally could retire and move back to California. And he was telling a bunch of us this the other day, and he said that, you know, and he was so ready. He said, I was so ready to retire when it was time to retire, and I could come back to Marin, to my beautiful house, and I could walk in the Marin Hills, and I was so depressed.

[24:37]

I was like, and it just went into me. I was like, oh, yes. And he's done a wonderful job. He's kind of reinvented himself or non-job. He's done a wonderful non-job and has really found his life as a Buddhist teacher and taken up many new things. But to me it came as this, oh, I will be very surprised if I don't get depressed. I mean, I'm not one of those people who, you know, my roommate in college, When she got depressed, she would put on sad music and really get into it, lay on her bed and play sad songs. I was like, no, thank you. I would rather do dishes. Do something useful. Dishes are really good for not being depressed. They are. For some of us, it works.

[25:38]

Do something where you can see that you're having a positive effect in life. So I have managed to avoid being depressed most of my life, and I've enjoyed it. However, I have a feeling. I don't know. I don't know. Still, it's really unknown. It's like very, I'll say dark, but I don't mean dark like depressed. I mean dark like unknown. But hearing this friend of mine say that, it was like it kind of opened another door onto what whole thing might be for a while. So applying this teaching of Dogen's, you know, first of all, I'm not there yet, so this is where I am. This is where I am. But I have sort of this feeling like, okay, if it's depressed, we'll see what depressed is.

[26:42]

And I don't know. That's made up. That's an imagination. It's okay to have an imagination or a vision but to know that's what it is and to come back to this is where we are right now. This openness to now. Openness to here. Openness to how it is not being colored by a separation from who we are right now, but to try to just come back to this is where it is, this is where it is. That's the simple teaching of Dogen, in spite of all the confusing things that are said sometimes.

[27:47]

that this is called the wisdom of the Buddha. That might be a little confusing. But to just come back to, how is it right now? How am I right now in the face of this? Whatever it is, whether it's a pleasant or an unpleasant experience. Do you have anything that you would like to say or ask? Yes, Ki? All right. Don't everybody get all into this. I don't know what it means, but I can see that at some point I'm not going to be able to be here at Tassajara.

[28:50]

Being at Tassajara has been a huge part of my identity. And at some point, I'm not going to be able to be here at Tassajara. You know, like various people, you know, teachers at Zen Center can say, I'm just going to do what I do until I die, you know, which might mean... I don't know what it'll mean if I'm laying sick in bed, but I'll keep doing it. And in some ways that's true for me, but I won't be doing it at Tassajara. So I don't know what it means. I'm not really getting into it too far. It's a conversation that's happening, but maybe it's denial, but I'm not going there too much yet. Yes. You refer to your friends who have a list of things they want to do when they retire. Yes. and when you brought it to the context of your own life, you can't think of anything. Is that because partially you followed your heart and you have done or doing what you love now?

[29:56]

And that other person may not have done it. No, I think this person did that too. I just think, you know, there are people who, you know, we're different. People are different. Some people just like, you know, some people have new ideas every minute. They just like, They have these visionary things that happen. I've never been much like that. I don't think it's a lack in any way. I mean, it's kind of a lack of my having these ideas, but I don't know if some will come or not. Yes. It doesn't mean to be passive. I wanted to clarify. The wisdom of the Buddha is accepting things as they are because if you wish they were different in the moment that they are the way they are, it causes you problems.

[31:06]

At the same time, you can still use your imagination to say, I can take action because things will change I can take action that will push things for the future. Maybe. Maybe. Maybe. In a different way. Am I right? Yes. I think it mostly all happens a little more organically and quickly than that. Like we... since we're part of the situation, we always take action. So whether we imagine what we think we're heading toward or not, so I don't think that imagination of where it's going to go is a necessary part, actually. But some of us might have an imagination of...

[32:08]

Either how to turn this situation or how to paint a painting or, you know, something. And that imagination will be part of our action. But mainly we're just interacting with the situation as it is. And how we interact with it is part of how it becomes the next moment. So if we're putting more hatred into the situation, there's more hatred in the situation. If we're putting more understanding into the situation, there's more understanding. And I think that the main place where we need more understanding is of ourselves, and that that more understanding expands very naturally to other people and other situations. That if we understand where, for instance, if we understand the fear and hatred that we find in ourself, we will understand it more in the outside world.

[33:21]

And therefore, your action, your next action will be more informed. We'll be more. Informed. Informed, yes, more in accord. Especially if our intention is we want things to be beneficial or less full of hatred, more full of love or freedom or something. Anybody else? Yes. Yes.

[34:45]

Well, you know, Buddhist practice being so much about non-attachment. Yes. Yeah, I'm surprised to hear you say that your identity is so tied into Tassajara. I know, but I've seen it for decades. And without having a lot of experience myself practicing that way, I retired in 2000, and it was very I had a long career, but what I realized without the benefit of practice is that my identity was not connected to what I did for a living. I didn't have that attachment. And it may just be because I didn't have a focus, I wasn't focused enough on that. So it sort of worked for my benefit in that way. But I think that we've all lived long enough to see

[35:48]

to live long enough to be able to look in retrospect and say how one thing that maybe, I know when I went through various career changes, the fear of change, and then shortly thereafter you were able to look back and say that fear was completely justified, that sometimes that's just kind of what you need to energize you, to pay attention. I guess the point I'm saying is about not having The attachment goes with that as well, the identity of what we do. Completely. Yes. And I think does eventually. But when we're still doing it, I mean, there's attachment like holding on to something, which that's what we're saying. It doesn't really work because things don't have an unchanging self. They keep changing. So if we're holding on to them, we're just going to cause ourselves pain.

[36:50]

But there also is something that we wouldn't call attachment in that way, but is the actuality of our daily life. Like when I was president of Zen Center, I did it for probably a little longer than, well, I did it for longer than some people have. And I think I was really ready to stop being president of Zen Center. And I came to Tassajara that summer. My family was here. I came to Tassajara and I was a practice leader here and I worked in the kitchen. I worked in the kitchen in the mornings and then did practice discussion in the afternoon. I was very happy to be here. I was not wanting to still be the president of Zen Center and I cried every day for a while because it was so interesting to watch it because It wasn't like I really wanted to go back and do it. I didn't have any thoughts of, I wish I were that person again.

[37:52]

It was more like there was a hole. And it was painful to have a hole. You could say to not know who I was, but I didn't exactly feel like I need to know who I am. I was fine with moving to the next thing, and yet there was this major transition of... not being who I had been, there was some grieving going on, grieving that identity. So that's the way that I mean, you know. Yeah, I'm not Tassajara, no matter what you all think. And no matter what I think, right? So when the time comes, I will not be Tassajara. We should stop. Thank you all very much.

[38:52]

Thank you for listening to this podcast offered by the San Francisco Zen Center. Our programs are made possible by the donations we receive. 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.

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