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. Good evening. Very happy to be here talking to all of you this evening. My name is Greg. Greg Fane. I'm the head of practice, or Tanto is the word in Japanese. Here in Tassahara, I'd like to start my talk tonight by saying, first, thanking and acknowledging my teacher, Sojin Sojourn Roshi, Mel Weitzman, Abbot of Berkeley Zen Center.

[01:03]

And to say that this talk is just to encourage you in your practice. That's what I got in mind. I'm really happy to be at this moment co-leading retreat right now in Tazahara with yoga teacher Lirio Olson we're having a blast yeah it's it's a quite an amazing experience this morning Lirio had us on our backs with our feet pointed up at the ceiling and then she said Write your first name with your left toe and your last name with your right toe at the same time.

[02:05]

And I was like, this is the first time in my life I've ever been grateful that my name, my first name has four letters and my last name has four letters. That was fun. And then this afternoon, this evening, wow. Ay-yi-yi. That was interesting. And I really am grateful, actually. Mostly I kept up. And... I do feel the benefit. I'm always telling people that Zen is body practice. Zen is body practice. Don't be confused about that, please.

[03:11]

Zen practice is something you do with your body. Your body, which is always in the present moment. Oh, yeah. to say something about this. What can you say about this? Well, it's a stick. It's called a kotsu, which I don't know what that means actually in Japanese. I think it just means teaching stick. It's made of wood and I love this stick. I love it. I don't mean LUV either. I love this stick. This stick was made for me by my teacher, Sojan Roshi, when he was only 82.

[04:19]

When Linda and I did Dharma Transmission together here in Tassahara in 2012, April 2012. And when you do that ceremony, you get lots of gifts. And Linda and I both got stick, which is basically it's a symbol of authority to teach and to give the precepts to somebody who feels they might benefit from receiving the precepts. they can talk to somebody wears one of these brown robes or wears one of these sticks and they can help them out. So, manzanita. Linda's is made of manzanita too. I think the manzanita came from the Shearson's place.

[05:29]

Grace and Peter have a Zen temple called Empty Nest in the foothills of the Sierras on this ranch, this rancho in North Fork, California. There's manzanita everywhere. And Grace is really devoted to Mel, and so she's like, you want manzanita? Help yourself. So, yeah, it's a beautiful wood. Linda's is... It's got all these tiny wormholes. You should ask her sometime. You can see it. It's full of these very far out little wormholes. This is a material object which I love. Some people say, I've heard it said, you've probably heard it too, that we live in a materialistic society.

[06:40]

Right? I've been hearing that since I was a kid. That our society, our culture is very materialistic. But the philosopher Alan Watts said, we're not materialistic. We don't love materials. We don't love things. He said, in fact, that our society is bent on the destruction of the material. Does not appreciate the material. Rather, what we value, perhaps, is experiences. You know? Been there. Done that. Got the t-shirt.

[07:42]

Got the coffee mug. Got the passport stamp. Put the pictures up on my Facebook page. Right? I think so, actually. I think that's somewhat accurate. Anyway, I agree. I agree with that. that assessment of our society, our culture, current dominant culture in this country. It's not even so much the acquiring of things that people get excited about, as it is the experience of acquiring things once the experience has happened there's some dissatisfaction after that Buddhism is all about studying dissatisfaction and the acquiring of experiences doing new things, going new places

[09:01]

Also, it breeds dissatisfaction, tension, competitiveness, unhappiness. In fact, there's a word for it that entered the Oxford English Dictionary in 2012, FOMO. Right? It stands for fear of missing out. It's an acronym. Fear of missing out. FOMO. FOMO is suffering. It's nothing new, actually. I can remember when I was a kid. When I was a kid, that was like how many times did I hear somebody say, oh, you missed it, man.

[10:03]

You should have been there, man. You really missed it. You're giggling. Heads are nodding. Yes, yes. Right? How many times have you been like, I missed it. That was all happening over there and I missed it. I often say when I orient people to new students to Tassajara and when we have community meeting at the beginning of summer guest season summer guest season is pretty amazing this guest season pretty amazing please cherish it please cherish it seems like it's just

[11:08]

moving fast please cherish this time usually uh i say you can't do everything in the summer guest season sometimes people get excited about that you know well should i chant the avatamsaka sutra or should i go to the queer dharma meeting you know decisions decisions I try to schedule things to help people not have to make choices like that. But sometimes it's unavoidable. And it's definitely true. You just can't do everything. And you should stop worrying about it. You should relax with it. And I feel like...

[12:11]

Our guy, Eihei Dogen, has something to say about this. In his life work, Dogen being the person who brought this lineage of Zen from China to Japan in the beginning of the 13th century, and I will, I do feel kind of like lately we have been, our Dharma talks have been kind of like Church of Dogen. I'm actually okay with that. I'm pretty comfortable with that. But anyway, this is sort of coming out of the class I taught about the Phucan Zazengi. for any of you who were, uh, in that class, one of them, one of them, I brought this up, uh, uh, you will have heard some of this before.

[13:23]

Uh, but, there's a, there's a fascicle, that means an essay, the, uh, Dogen's life work, the Shova Genso, The Treasury of the True Dharma Eye, is composed of essays. There's, uh, 96 of them. He meant to write 100, but he didn't live long enough. There's the one in the complete English translation that was done by Kaz Tanahashi and an assortment of San Francisco Zen Center teachers. This one happened to be Kaz and Sojin Roshi. And it's translated, the title is translated as dustness. And this is how it starts. This is the opening paragraph. Yunju, great master Hongjui of Mount Yunju, an heir of Dungshan, is a 39th generation Dharma descendant of Shakyamuni Buddha.

[14:39]

He is an authentic ancestor of the Dungshan school. That's us. One day he said to the assembly, you are trying to attain thusness, yet you are already a person of thusness. As you are already a person of thusness, why be worried about thusness? As you are already a person of thusness, why be worried about thusness? The title of this fascicle in Japanese is actually a Chinese word, a Chinese expression, actually. It's two characters, a colloquial expression called imo, which has been variously translated as in this way, like this, like that, this, that, such, or Nishijima.

[15:41]

In the Nishijima cross translation, Guru Nishijima calls it it. The title of the fascicle in that translation is it. And Suzuki Roshi talked about this as well. And he used that translation, it, as in... What time is it? Or it's cold outside. This is a key expression in many Zen dialogues. But from a practice point of view, probably dustness is a best translation. As you are already a person of thusness, why be worried about thusness?

[16:51]

There's nothing for you to get, and there's nothing for you to miss. You really missed it, man. Well, you can't miss it. It is already completely abundant. Life is already happening all the time. FOMO is like when you're so busy worrying about being somewhere else or doing something else that you can't enjoy what's happening right now. You can't pay attention to what's happening right now. And it's actually a problem and highly exacerbated by this.

[18:00]

This activity. These glowing rectangles. These glowing rectangles that are part of many people's lives. The information age. Oh, but I could click over here. Click over there. Go to that page. Oh, that's happened. Oh, I'm missing it. Yeah, so I think and it's no joke because some people have I think made some crummy life decisions because of that fear. The fear. What's happening now just can't be good enough. It isn't good enough. It isn't right. So, it's pretty endemic. You can't miss it. It's always happening.

[19:06]

You are already a person of thusness. Why be worried about thusness? So, as far as I'm concerned, Emo is the cure for FOMO. I've been waiting for about three weeks to say that. I'm kind of glad I got it off my chest. Now we can move on. But I don't mean for this talk to be frivolous. because I am quite serious.

[20:09]

I recall when I was doing ministry in San Quentin State Prison, there was a time when most of our Sangha They were coming from North Block. San Quentin is several prisons in one. And the state of California prison system decided they wanted that housing in North Block for more secure housing. And all the guys, mostly older guys, mostly guys about my age, who were doing life sentences, who were low security risk, but the so-called term lifers, were going to be sent to other prisons and effectively break up our sangha. And it seemed like a very real possibility at one point.

[21:19]

And the leader of the sangha, Sado Roshi, Sado Lee Debaros, gave this Dharma talk that was so inspiring. It... Oh my gosh. It was really moving. Because these men were suffering. And... He said, this practice is portable. It goes through stone walls. It goes through iron bars. It goes through metal detectors. Wherever you go, the practice goes with you. There's nothing to fear. Words to that effect. It was an extremely moving talk. I think it's all very well to say you're already a person of thusness, so don't be worried about thusness.

[22:28]

Stop it, all you. Just stop worrying about thusness. Just give up your FOMO right now. Yes? No? Okay. Actually, that's why we talk about practice so much, right? We practice. In this particular essay, Dogen has some advice for us. It's one of my favorite parts of Shobha Genzo. Actually, I think it's very good advice about how to practice. And it goes a little something like this. When you understand the moment of falling to the ground... You will not doubt the moment of falling to the ground at the moment of getting up.

[23:31]

Since ancient times, these words have been spoken in both India and the Deva world. One who falls to the ground uses the ground to stand up. One who ignores the ground and tries to stand cannot. The meaning of is that those who fall down on the earth stand up on the earth. It is impossible to get up without using the earth. So yes, we don't just automatically merge with thusness necessarily, even though this body is always in the present moment. I taught Zazen instruction a couple days ago and I said that and I said, I dare you to contradict me. This body, your body, any body is always in the present moment.

[24:36]

But how do we manifest that? How do we bring that into our lives? This is why Suzuki Roshi was always saying we should be grateful for our problems. He said that many, many times. We should be grateful for our problems because the ground you trip over is the ground you step up, you stand up upon. The problems you have are the ground of enlightenment. The problems you have are the ground of your practice. Don't ignore that. You ignore that at your peril. One who ignores the ground and tries to stand cannot.

[25:40]

It is impossible to get up without using the earth. You know who I feel really gets this are alcoholics that is alcoholics who are in recovery they say half measures availed us nothing you have to turn towards you have to turn towards your suffering you have to turn towards your problems and meet them completely the ground you trip over is the ground you use to stand up on. Emo is the cure for FOMO.

[26:51]

He just got it. We do this over and over. You know, the root of the word humility is hummus, earth, being down to earth. The ground of reality is thusness.

[27:55]

Things as it is. What's the difference between humility and humiliation? Give up. Self-clinging. Every morning for service we do nine prostrations and then we put our palms together and we say, all my ancient twisted karma from beginningless greed, hate and delusion, excuse me, born through body, speech and mind, I now fully avow. One time in a... There's a ceremony we do called Shosan, where everybody gets to ask the teacher a question one by one.

[29:15]

And somebody was sort of expressing their pain around their guilt and shame about something they did. And Mel said... Wait, didn't we just do that this morning? Didn't we just put our palms together and say that thing? Did we just move on? Yeah. So we do that. We say, may we exist in muddy water, purity like a lotus.

[30:17]

There's no contradiction there. That's how we practice. That's how we merge with thusness. And that's all I've got to say. this evening and I thank you for your kind attention there's a minute or two if in the unlikely event that someone's got a question hello Well, it's a colloquial expression and it's very difficult to translate. So, I gave you a few examples. These are from variously Kaz Tanahashi, Thomas Creary, and Gudo Nishijima.

[31:28]

In this way, like this, like that, this, that, such, or it. It's... Yeah, it's kind of difficult to translate. Sometimes people greet each other and they say, well, it is. What is it? It is what? Sure. Anything else I can straighten out before we go home?

[32:41]

All right. Thank you very much. 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 sfcc.org and click Giving.

[33:08]

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