This podcast is offered by the San Francisco Zen Center on the web at www.sfcc.org. Our public programs are made possible by donations from people like you. Welcome to Beginner's Mind Temple. Someone needs a cushion over here? We call it Beginner's Mind Temple in recognition of what is most difficult to practice. That Suzuki Roshi pointed out, Suzuki Roshi being the founder of San Francisco Zen Center, Suzuki Roshi pointed out that people misunderstand what is the real challenge of

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Zen practice. And he said that the most difficult thing and most important is to cultivate beginner's mind. To not lose beginner's mind. And so beginner's mind is a difficult challenge because it's where we are confronting the edge of the known world. We're confronting the edge of the known world, what we think of as something that's known or whatever it is you might think you know. Even if you don't know something, that's something that you think you know. So to be confronted moment by moment, and be willing to be in the uncomfortable place of being a beginner, stumbling into the room, and you don't know what are the rules here.

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So we all know that experience and have some fear that comes up. So this is fundamental. challenge, I think, maybe for all organisms, human beings, human animals, along with others. I saw a film some time back with Temple Grandin. People know Temple Grandin? Temple Grandin was a very careful observer of animals. In this case, she was studying cows, studying cattle. She'd actually get down on her hands and knees and move around the space, understanding how are things from a cow's point of view. One of the things she noticed was that the animals, the cattle, are more calm when they think they're going back to where they came from.

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They have some kind of circular motion where they're circling back to where they came from, where it's... And I think we're also, I think we have that also in our bodies, wanting to come back to, sometimes we say, home. So it's a radical notion in Buddhism to be willing to be homeless, to be willing to be always at the edge of what's familiar. Zen master Dogen in the 1200s quoted an earlier Zen teacher who said, the entire universe is nothing but the Dharma body of the self.

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And you should not be obstructed by the Dharma body of the self. If you are, then you're completely unable to move freely. And Dogen himself comments on that, saying that the practice of Buddhas is always to practice in the same manner. as the entire earth and all beings. Practice in the same manner to actually be moment by moment engaged in the same manner as the entire earth and all the beings in the entire earth. If, Dogen continues to say, if, If this is not what the Buddha is doing, they're not Buddhas.

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If the Buddha is leaving out something in the entire earth, if the Buddha is leaving out some beings, then this is not the Buddha's practice. So for us to take up this way, this practice, is to... Find what it's like to be right at the edge. You might take a moment and just imagine, here you are in this room. There may be people in the room that you know. There may be people in the room that you don't know. But you know them as people I don't know. So you have them, say, categorized. And in that sense, They're known to you as people you don't know.

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These people that you don't know and these people that you know are all part of your known world. Outside the room there's sunlight. The whole city of San Francisco. There might be a moon in your universe Do you know where the moon is right now? Is the moon waxing, waning, setting? So you might not know where the moon is, but you have a moon that you don't really know that much about in your universe. Even from the vastness of space, you have some idea of vastness. And then when you look at, say, what's microscopic, what is the world of bacteria?

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You might have some idea. You might have looked through a microscope and have that image in your mind. Or seen photographs that you've adopted as part of your universe. And then can you imagine that that whole universe is gone. And just, we can't say in what direction. What direction is the unknown? Even if we give the unknown some direction. But you might imagine just outside of this, like a bubble of your known universe, outside the bubble of that is, you can't even say it's black, right? You can't even say it's dark. That would be creating some characters. That would be creating some kind of characteristic that you're supplying.

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So this is beginner's mind. Big challenge. How to work with it. How to live in this way. There's a Zen dialogue that goes, Guishan of Dijon asked his student, Fayan, where are you going? And Fayan said, going on a pilgrimage. And Guizhan said, what's the point? What's the point of pilgrimage? And Fayan said, I don't know. And Dijan said, the Guizhan of Dijan said, non-knowing, most intimate.

[10:01]

Not knowing, most intimate. So when I first heard this, I thought Fayan saying, when I asked about the purpose or the point of pilgrimage and saying, I don't know, I thought he was saying, well, he didn't know. He was waiting on the teacher to supply some answer. He may have been saying, I'm practicing not knowing. I'm practicing. The practice of pilgrimage as a Zen practice is a practice of not knowing, is a practice of beginner's mind. Some people may think of pilgrimage as going to a particular known place and then going to another known place and then another known place. But even if we don't, say, forget where we're going, even if we know where we're going, the practice of pilgrimage is a practice of not knowing.

[11:13]

Along the way, always moment by moment, not knowing. You might think most intimate, like shaking hands or giving someone a hug. But are you hugging the person that you think you know? Or are you hugging the real person who you don't know? The unknown part of the hug. It's kind of scary when you realize how much it's true, how true it is. that we don't know. To be willing to be, say, still and calm in the midst of this not knowing is to have confidence.

[12:18]

To have confidence in what we say is true nature. Have confidence in something that we actually can't know. With a kind of a gratitude, a feeling of gratitude, because we do know that our life depends on it. this life, this moment, depends on all of this universe that we don't know. Knowing that, and with that kind of understanding, we adopt a posture of confidence. Adopt a posture of being right at home. in the midst of not knowing. And not knowing who's going to show up. So I'm going to read a little poem from Rumi, who many of you know this poem called The Guest House.

[13:25]

I've changed a few lines to suit myself. And you. This being human is a guest house. Every morning a new arrival, a joy, a depression, a meanness. Some momentary awareness comes as an unexpected visitor. Welcome and entertain them all. Even if they are a crowd of sorrows who violently sweep your house empty of its furniture, still treat each guest honorably. She may be clearing you out for some new delight.

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No matter whether it is a dark thought, shame, malice, meet them at the door. with a warm smile and show them a room. Be grateful for whoever comes because each must be regarded as a guide from beyond. But here we can say, but each must be regarded as your own true self. So when Dogen's saying, the entire universe is nothing other than the Dharma body of the self. That includes any of these visitors who might show up. Rumi says, some momentary awareness comes as an unexpected visitor.

[15:34]

This reminded me of Sometimes I've told the story of planting beans at Green Gulch. Some of you have heard me. But it's a new story today. So this was in, say, the first year that we had a farm project at Green Gulch Farm in Marin County. Maybe some of you don't know. The Zen Center has a place. at Muir Beach. And so John Coonan and I had carved out a little area, maybe 150 feet long or so, and 100 feet wide in the midst of what we now call the second field. And we were We were planting everything we could think of just to see what would grow, because not only did we have beginner's mind, but we didn't know what we were doing.

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However, one day, I was there by myself, and I knew what I was doing. I was planting beans, and I had this long furrow. With the hoe, I made a long furrow. And I had these white beans. I don't know, some kind of, I was planting them six inches, approximately six inches apart. I wasn't measuring them, but I know what six inches is. And I was practicing mindfulness and concentration. Bean, the next bean, I'm down on my knees and I'm crawling along the ground, planting the beans. And then in my peripheral vision, up the road, people at Green Gulch know there's a road that comes down through the field. And from up the road, somewhere there, I saw some movement and I saw, oh, there's some people coming.

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They're distracting me. I'm just here planting beans and I wish they weren't coming. I know what they're going to do. They're going to come down here and they're going to watch me. And then they're going to ask some stupid question. And I'm trying to just concentrate on planting these beans. One next bean. And they get closer and closer and I become more and more tense. making a great effort just to concentrate on the next bean. And sure enough, they come, and at the end, I'm getting a little closer toward the road myself. I'm moving toward the road, and they stand there, three people, and they stand there. And I get closer. And then one of them says, What are you doing? And I felt like shouting at them, you know, Can't you see I'm planting beans?

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I didn't shout, though. I just said, planting beans. And then the next stupid question was, how do you get to the beach? How do you get to the beach? It's like, well, you know, you walk downhill. It's like... So I just said, follow the road downhill. Okay, they left. And then I realized that this whole thing was my own mind. This whole thing, the whole problem, the whole sense of being obstructed by things was my own mind.

[20:07]

I realized that I was somehow pretending that they weren't going to come when I'm planting beans. I was somehow pretending that I could be here alone in the universe and that no one was going to come and ask a stupid question. And I had to confess that it was my own judgment that made it a stupid question. It was my own judgment that made them into some interference. It was my own small mind, my own small universe of saying, oh, I'm gonna just be concentrated right here and that mindfulness is just me and the being. When actually me, mindfulness, me and the being includes the entire earth and all the beings. Later on I found out Dogen said that.

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So each being this moment includes the entire earth and all the beings in it. There is no other universe. Which means that they are already part of my universe. That everything, anything that may show up, just as Rumi is saying, that looks like an unexpected visitor. Looks like an unexpected visitor means that unexpected visitor is telling me about my own delusion. Where do I think my universe ends? So whenever someone is showing up, unexpectedly.

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Rather than regard that as an interruption, to regard that as this is showing me who I am. This is showing me who I am. This is showing me how I am failing, actually, the difficult challenge of beginner's mind. How by my own adopting of some limit, preferring the known world, preferring my own known world, what a wonderful gift it is for someone to show up and poke a hole right in the bubble of my known world. It's a wonderful gift and it's really upsetting. It's so upsetting. It's so distressing.

[23:21]

So you may consider taking up this practice yourself. The Buddha's practice. The Buddha's practice of opening up to the entire world and all the beings. All the beings in it. Now this is difficult for good reason. It's difficult because we do need to take care of ourselves, take care of our own bodies, take care of our own space. And since... Since we do need to take care of our own bodies and take care of our own space, we create within ourselves a kind of a body of control, of a manager, someone who likes to have things the way they're supposed to be.

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And we need this. We need to have some various... maybe various managers, according to the situation, who can take care of this or take care of that. But the problem is that managers begin to believe, they begin to believe that the world that they manage is real. Begin to believe that this world that is in some kind of control is real. And as soon as that happens, and a manager has to do it, has to believe it in order to work with it, as soon as that happens, there's anxiety created. Because underneath, there is a recognition that, oh, this is not really essentially substantial.

[25:38]

This is not really something that can be successfully and permanently maintained. There's always something that's kind of crumbling and falling apart. There's a fear that what may look like it's substantial is going to fall apart. We have to contend with this fear. We have to contend with the say, the shadow side of what we know. And the shadow side is all that we don't know. And we know that what we do know is impermanent. It's unreliable and subject to falling apart. And that naturally scares us. So it takes a lot for us to welcome

[26:43]

what comes in as an unexpected visitor. Galway Connell wrote a poem a while back, which is, really it's a poem about healing, it's a poem about knowing that there's been some rift, there's been some rupture, there's been some way. in which something may feel bereft or feel damaged, and how to actually be helpful. He takes his inspiration from St. Francis of Assisi, and St. Francis had, you know, San Francisco's named after St.

[27:45]

Francis, right? St. Francis City. So St. Francis supposedly, anyway, was very kind with all animals and went around blessing them, ordinary animals. And in this case, he put his hand and blessed a pig, a sow, a mother pig. So here's Galway Connell's poem. It starts out with flowers, the bud. The bud stands for all things, even for those things that don't flower. For everything flowers from within of self-blessing. though sometimes it is necessary to reteach a thing its loveliness, to put a hand on the brow of the flower and retell it in words and in touch.

[28:55]

It is lovely until it flowers again from within of self-blessing. As St. Francis put his hand on the creased forehead of the sow, and told her in words and in touch blessings of the earth on the sow. And the sow began remembering all down her thick length, from the earthen snout all the way through the fodder and slops to the spiritual curl of the tail, from the hard spininess spiked out from the spine down through the great broken heart to the sheer blue milk and dreaminess spurting and shuddering from the 14 teats into the 14 mouths sucking and blowing beneath them the long perfect loveliness of sow.

[30:00]

I'm a I'm particularly fond of pigs myself. Having grown up with some really wonderful ones. I wasn't thinking about it, but now I am. I have my own moment in pig paradise. Forgive me here, So I'm maybe five years old, four years old, maybe four years old. And my cousin, about the same age, she and I were at her uncle's farm. This is in Kansas. Warm day, probably warmer than this, this day here. And we're out there looking through the fence, admiring the intelligence of the pigs. And the pigs had created an environment where they had dug and rooted into the ground and stirred up water and mud until it was a fine, fine slurry.

[31:24]

You get the picture? It was also very fragrant. We have to include the fragrance. And we stood there a while, and then without saying, I don't remember us discussing it, but we took off our clothes and climbed through the fence, got in with the pigs. And I remember getting in up to my chin. And it was just wonderful. Smooth, creamy. People might pay a lot of money these days for a particular kind of therapeutic bath treatment, right? Huh? One that smelled different, you say, huh? So, in your universe, maybe pigs don't smell so good.

[32:31]

But in our universe, as four-year-olds or whatever, it was just fine. And it was like being in paradise, right? And we were so proud of ourselves. Until we heard this shrieking sound behind us, which turned out to be our mother's. And I remember just kind of being yanked out by my elbow. And then being blasted with a cold garden hose. Oh, no, no, no. So I went from heaven to hell with my mother's kindness. But she had to do what she had to do. Being a mother. But I haven't forgotten the juxtaposition of the

[33:39]

those two universes of value. The great value of the sensory pleasure of a four-year-old coming up against the value of the civilized world that my mother was obligated to uphold. I certainly can't blame her for that. Sigmund Freud wrote a book entitled Civilization and Its Discontents. So I think we all have that. We all also are trying to find, well, what is the way to be right at home? To be right at home in this world of jarringly conflicting points of view. When your friend comes up and

[34:42]

admonishes you for something that you did that hurt their feelings, it's that jarringly conflicted point of view where you might not have even realized that you did something. I might not have realized that the fragrance of the pig pen was bad news to my mother. certainly not suitable for bringing into the house. So you had to get washed off of the garden hose first before going in. So the question then is how to be present with the entire earth and all its beings. So when Dogen is saying, this is our practice, This is the practice of waking up.

[35:44]

The practice of waking up is being willing to be in this present moment, whether it's comfortable or uncomfortable, whether there is an unexpected visitor who is showing up. It may be helpful to realize that no visitors really should be unexpected. to be willing to expect the unexpected, to be willing to be admonished by your friend or admonished by someone you're not so sure is your friend or someone you might categorize as a stranger or an enemy. But if you're open to this, then it means you don't actually have any enemies.

[36:46]

You have different aspects of yourself showing up at inconvenient times and places. And bringing one's own beginner's mind means to be willing to be still, in the midst of it, to be still in the sense of not wanting to be anywhere else. Now we have a whole culture of wanting to be somewhere else. There are many advertisements about how you can get to be somewhere else. We're filled with a culture of propaganda telling us that there's somewhere else to be that's better, more comfortable, where you yourself are more beautiful, more acceptable, where things are comfortable.

[37:55]

And if you don't feel that way, then there's all kinds of pills that you can take to help you. There's all kinds of things that you can buy to help you. So this is really a radical practice going against the grain of what we're being kind of blasted with so much of the time. But even without that, it's right at the so much at the center of the problem of being human. Fundamentally it's the same problem that Buddha talked about 2,500 years ago and Dogen talked about 1,200 years ago. This practice of awakening is being willing to be present with the entire universe and all beings in it.

[39:03]

And you don't spend much time then wishing it was otherwise. You actually don't waste much time pretending to yourself. Because when you do pretend to yourself, that's your own depth, really. When you pretend to yourself, you cannot really be who you are. So to be who you are means to be willing to be completely, fully present, inhabiting this moment knowing that whoever shows up and whoever is part of it is yourself. So then the friendly thing to do with yourself is to greet, as Rumi says, treat the guests that show up honorably.

[40:05]

Treat the various aspects of yourself that show up Honorably. Give them their space that they actually need. Every part of your own body has its own space. So when we're sitting zazen, those of us who are going back to sit in the zendo today, as you said, let every part of your body do zazen. Right where it is, having its own space. Let your thoughts just be thoughts having their own space. Your thoughts are not what's true. What's true is not knowing. What's true is being in this place of not knowing with the confidence that it is who you are.

[41:11]

This is your whole Dharma body. Maybe that's a place to stop. It's right on time. Thank you for listening. 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, please visit sfzc.org and click Giving. May we fully enjoy the Dharma.

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