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. Good morning everybody. Welcome to San Francisco Zen Center. I'm grateful to see you all here. Thank you. And also I think I should say welcome to those people who are watching via live stream or maybe through the miracle of a tape delay or in other world systems. Everybody, welcome. So, my name is Jordan and I have a last name, Jordan Thorne. I'm a priest here at the Zen Center and one of the special gifts of being a student at the Zen Center is I have the chance to give this talk.

[01:05]

So thank you for offering me this challenging opportunity. Well, maybe I should say I feel a little, it's not just simple, I feel some angst or, you know, like some doubt. Because I want to give a nice talk. Let me just confess that. Even that's a personal, maybe prideful thing. I want to give a nice talk. And because I want to be encouraging to you and myself. So I'll make my best effort. This world that we live in is what it is.

[02:20]

The world is what it is. And it's also, it's many things. And it is what we make of it. And this world we find ourselves in is the field of our practice. This room we share right now is the field of our life. Our individual lives but also accidentally, temporarily, our shared lives together in a room. And this is where our practice unfolds. But that's true wherever we go. Our practice unfolds wherever we are. And in this world, or in this room, or in this life, which is what we make of it, when we're young, when we're young, it might have appeared or it might appear that our unfolding life means stepping into the addition, the great adventure of adding things.

[03:41]

We add, going to school. We had toilet training. We had independence, carefully or enthusiastically found. We had relationships. We had money. And as we grow up, it's kind of a story of adding. We had stylish clothes and sporting clothes. talents, baseball. Who knows? When I was young, I enthusiastically developed a habit for billiards and nine ball. But as life passes, which is another way of saying as we get older, we ripen.

[04:44]

And our experience changes. And what we might start to begin to notice is what we're losing. Our sharp vision becomes less so. Some portion of our vigor might become lessened. You know, we might even lose at some point our toilet training and a portion of our independence as we get older. And not to mention how those stylish clothes we liked so much start to look foolish. Perhaps. Perhaps. And then finally, in the end, we lose our life. And the world is what it is.

[05:49]

The momentum of our life is thus. Our attention to the world begins with the fresh adventure of learnings and opportunities, flows into some maybe semblance of a unity when we think we might have a plan or some way of understanding how things will unfold. And then, sometimes in ways we don't even notice as it starts to happen, we might see that our well-laid plans have dead ends. Not all of them. Well, actually, it's good to have plans. It's a very important thing, you know, to have an intention in your life. But as we get older, this beauty of the world that surrounds us and is a gift to us can be seen as kind of an entrance to a labyrinth which is not a bad thing a labyrinth which we enter and navigate searching for the center trying to find what is the center of all this stuff where's the place

[07:12]

to be said, this is a beautiful world. And it's full of flowers and mountains and freeway off-ramps that lead us to mini-marts, gas stations that have everything we don't need. What a beautiful world we live in. And in the midst of it From the very, very beginning, but we don't necessarily maybe even notice it so much in the very beginning, but throughout the whole mishugana or whatever the word is for this thing that's called our life unfolding, there is the dance of impermanence. The dance of things changing. And this is actually the first noble truth of Buddhism.

[08:24]

The truth is what we call dukkha or suffering, but also transformation. So this, my personal awareness of the first noble truth that things change is in some ways the seed for this talk today. I just wanted to say that, share that with you all. That's what I'm trying to kind of unpack a bit in a way that's personally useful to me and I hope to others. And the fact that, you know, our vision might dim a bit and all those things that might be seen, our shirts get older and maybe even get dirty, who knows.

[09:32]

I don't say that is bad things. It's just the way things are. And in fact, actually being aware of that and noticing that and actually being at peace with that is how we become unified with our all beings, with our life, with this experience of transformation, this thing called dukkha, this noble truth of impermanence. So we're here at a Zen center at a Buddhist temple. And in practicing the Buddha way, there are many Dharma gates to enter. As we'll say later, Dharma gates are boundless. But amongst these myriad Dharma gates, ways to start up and take up practice to understand ourselves. One strong, important place that all of this happens is when we notice how things change.

[10:39]

And when we notice how involved we are in having opinions about this change. taking part in this change. In Zen practice, there's something called Zazen. Zen meditation. Zazen. Sitting Zen. And Zazen is the way, the effort we make to face the world of impermanence and learn who we are. to face the world of impermanence and learn who we are, which is maybe not exactly who we think we are, but is also exactly who we have always been. So Zazen.

[11:41]

Zazen. Did some of you go to Zazen instruction this morning? It's a good thing to do. I went to Zazen instruction years ago. And I went to Zazan Instruction about three months ago. So I want to, I trust that the instruction you received this morning, which might have taken an hour in various aspects, I trust that that instruction was just exactly what you need. But I'm going to say it to you in a very simple, concentrated way right now. which is, in Zazen, we notice who we are when we stop moving. In Zen meditation, we notice who we are when we sit still. And then, we see Buddha rises.

[12:46]

We notice the impact of dukkha, impermanence, how this energy becomes the next moment. The effort we make to sit down and stop is one of the ways that we understand how our life is changing. Because yes, you know, things are constantly changing. And if there is one thing you learn that one can learn, nobody has to learn anything.

[13:55]

But if there's something you might learn sitting in Zazen is that our life is like a wild surging river. The life force is forever moving, forever bubbling. Sometimes it's like a river that is going over a waterfall, you know, and foam is flying in the air and there's a mist in the air that... And sometimes the river goes into a broad plain and the water slows down. And the surface becomes flat and reflected on it. Everything around can be seen. Chinese poet Li Po, one of the great ones, Dong Dynasty. Poet Lipo, he said, he wrote.

[14:58]

The long river passes east away, surge over surge. White blooming waves sweep all heroes on as right and wrong, triumph and defeat, both turn unreal. But ever the green hills stay to blush in the west waning day. the green hills stay after blush in the waning day. So our human life has a rhythm to it. I say this, all of our human lives have a rhythm. The river of our life passes in front of us surging waters sometimes and White blooming waves sweep us heroically on to some adventure that we're so excited about.

[16:01]

And sometimes we're deposited in a still lake. When we're born, when we're new to this human life experience, It's pretty easy to seem innocent and sweet. It kind of feels that way when I see new babies. Innocent and sweet. What happens to them? They're always innocent and sweet. But I think one thing that happens to them is that they grow up. And it's one of the great joys of being a child to start to have the responsibility to make your own decisions.

[17:02]

I remember at one point when I was a teenager, and I realized that I could go to McDonald's anytime I wanted. You didn't have to have my mom drive me there. I could just go. And then shortly afterwards, the realization I had is I really didn't want to go to McDonald's. It was good to know I could, you know, but actually I didn't want to do that. Did they have McDonald's in Ireland, Paul? Oh, yes. Yeah, you had a sad diminished childhood. here's our problem.

[18:04]

We're convinced we're incomplete. We think we're not convinced of anything sometimes. We just feel like we're incomplete. We think we're separate from other people. We manifest that by feeling lonely and misunderstood. And We're looking for something to fulfill us. It might be smoking pot with your high school friends or it might be a girlfriend or boyfriend or whatever friend that will be the answer to your life. Or it might be the job that you can get that you'll be proud of and your friends will think you're lucky. We're looking for something to fulfill complete us. And in some ways, you know, I think we're looking and looking and looking and we find we get what we think we want and then we're still looking for something else.

[19:17]

And I think how I understand this is we are all Buddha looking for We are all Buddhas looking for our companion Buddhas. An incentive on this journey, which we're on even though we sometimes don't realize we're on a journey, one incentive, one impetus for it is the fact that our life is fleeting. When we least expect it, it can be vanished in a flash, as the Diamond Sutra says at the very end in that little couple lines of poetry. Vanished in a flash, like a dewdrop, maksho.

[20:24]

You know, I don't know what I would do without Wikipedia. Um, Because I found out just before this lecture that a few years ago, last year, they said 38,300 people died in auto crashes in the United States that year. And I don't think any one of those persons who died in an auto accident woke up in the morning knowing that this is the day. It would be a rare person who had that knowledge, foreknowledge. And this awareness of our mortality is one of the things that Buddhism talks about. It talks about the precious opportunity of a human life. And don't waste this life, this precious opportunity of human life. I guess it might be like a gata, a four-line verse.

[21:50]

Maybe it's part of a longer poem, but something Khadigiri Roshi wrote, and that in Norman Fisher's groups is sometimes read, recited. At least that's where I came upon it. And it goes, knowing how to live, knowing how to walk with people, demonstrating and teaching, this is the Buddha way. Knowing how to live, knowing how to walk with people, demonstrating and teaching this is the Buddha way. And so I wonder, what does it mean to know how to live? To know how to walk with people? And I wonder also, what brings us to this place together here? This motley group of people in this room shared today. What brings us all together? What's the common thing? And I look around and we are some of us friends and most of us strangers.

[22:51]

Yet somehow here we are together on this strangely sultry Saturday monsoonish day at the San Francisco Zen Center. And this is how I understand why we're here together. We're here today because we're each of us We are each and every one of us enlightenment beings. And each one of us are individuals that have separate lives, who share something incredible together, which is that we're stepping into the way of liberation, that we're finding out how to wake up. And whether we know it or not, this is who we are. This is where we're going.

[24:11]

One day for many of us. When we least expect it, when we're in the middle of the road of our life, to very obliquely quote Dante, in the middle of the road of our life, one day, if we're lucky, we might understand that something is missing. And of course, nothing is missing. Our lives have the nature of awakening. This very mind is Buddha. But in some sort of strange way, we have to earn our laurels. We can't just say this very mind is Buddha and then just get on with, you know, now I'm going to go to the movies. We have to make it real in us, inside of us.

[25:13]

And that's a process that... actually isn't even that hard to do, because it's what our inner, it's what we really want to do, but somehow we easily seem to forget that fact and do other things. We go to McDonald's. And all the other versions of them. One day, during a period of Zazen, Suzuki Roshi, our founder of this Zen Center, San Francisco Zen Center, he said out loud in a period of meditation to the assembly, he said, it doesn't get better later. And then on another occasion, I read, I wasn't there, I didn't hear it, but I read this.

[26:30]

I trust it's true. He encouraged people in his endo by saying, in its wide sense, everything is a teaching for us. The color of the mountain, the sound of the river, or the sound of a motor car. Each one a teaching of Buddha. And then on another occasion, he said, people don't know how selfish they are. I heard Bernie Glassman say that once. Tetsugan Bernie Glassman, disciple of Maizumi Roshi. He said he was at a 12-step meeting, and one of the things that goes over what happens is people, you know, they say, I'm Bernie and I'm an alcoholic or whatever they want to say.

[27:32]

And he said, I'm Bernie and I'm addicted to myself. And I'm Jordan and I'm addicted to myself. And this self that I have this such a close affectionate affinity to is actually kind of like a daydream. It's a daydream I try to direct. I take pleasure in having it unfold and new chapters while I'm laying on my bed thinking about things. And I think that for many people, I don't want to say for everybody, but for some people, the daydream of our life is so compelling that we take it as the solace.

[28:36]

That's how we bear the burden of what might be otherwise kind of, well, not, you know, kind of whatever. And I think the good news, I think the thing that Zen, what Buddhism teaches, you know, we teach waking up. And one of the things we have to wake up from is this daydream that we so persistently wrap ourselves around in. And if we can do that, if we can kind of like break the daydream and be just ourselves, then we might have the chance to make a gift of our life. And that gift is just really nothing special more than being present with people and with yourself.

[29:41]

And taking care in how you treat people. So in the midst of it all, we can wake up. And in the midst of it all, we can offer... ourselves and our life as a gift to the world. I'm going to tell a story right now about something I heard about Suzuki Roshi. And I heard it firsthand from a Japanese priest in the Jodo Shenshu tradition. Jodo Shenshu is called the Pure Land tradition. And there's a church, a temple over in Japantown, it's called Buddhist Churches of America. Buddhist Church of America. And the person who said this to me was, at that time, was the Archbishop of the Buddhist Churches of America.

[30:54]

And it was a story about when he was younger when he first came from Japan to San Francisco to America and met Suzuki Roshi. So a little bit of this I'm going to read what he said. When I was 23 I was a young Jodo Shenshu priest. That's like Joto Shinshu is like a type of Buddhism. He's like, you can say I'm young, he's a Soto Zen priest. And my first assignment in America was Los Angeles. And in Los Angeles, I worked with other Buddhist ministers and with the congregation, which was mostly Japanese American. And I was obligated to conduct memorial services and funeral services most of the time for only Japanese and Japanese Americans. And when I went out from the Los Angeles temple, There were very interesting bars and restaurants which I enjoyed. And I'd never seen so many different kinds of people.

[31:57]

I thought I understood the Dharma. But I didn't understand much because I'd lived within a tradition without critical or precise questioning. I lived along with traditions and rituals, but when I was asked questions about the Dharma, I couldn't really answer them. And that made it difficult for me to continue. being a minister. I started having arguments with the head minister. I had various problems. So I ran away from the Jodo Shenshu Temple in Los Angeles and I came up to San Francisco. I was 23 and I got a job at a bookstore in San Francisco in Japantown. And at that time, Suzuki Roshi would sometimes stop by the bookstore where I worked. He would talk with me. He read my mind. He saw my frustrations.

[33:03]

He saw my loss of confidence and he said, come to sit with me, it might help you. So I started going to Sakoji on Bush Street. So I started going to Sakoji and that was the time when the hippies started to come. It was an exciting time, you know. It was fun. One time a young girl came to the Zendo and she was wearing only a net dress. It was made from a tennis court net with a mesh that was two inches square. But it was made very carefully and it fit her quite well. The only problem was she was still basically naked. So she went in and said Zazen. And before the period started, I saw Suzuki Roshi and Kategori Roshi in the door to the Zendo looking and talking. They were whispering to each other.

[34:06]

And Suzuki Roshi motioned me over. And I heard Kategori Roshi say to Suzuki Roshi, what should we do? And Suzuki Rishi scratched his head and said, I'm not sure, I don't know. And then Suzuki looked at me and said, Bishop Ugui, you go over and talk to her. He said, you're the person who should talk to her. So I went up to her and I told her that the teacher would like for her to wear more clothes in consideration of the other people who came to Sitzazen. And when I said this, she said, but this is my best dress. And then he went on to say,

[35:31]

to his English speaking students. And one time when he spoke to his students he said something that struck me and made my ministerial life changed so that I wished to continue. Sometimes Suzuki Roshi would use a little Japanese along with his English to help him think I guess. At this time, he started talking and walking in front of people back and forth. And he said, today, today, today, vajana. Today, vajana. And today, vajana is the subject, and jana is like is, with emphasis. It's a kind of way to say, emphasize. Today, vajana. And then he said, today, Izu yipari today.

[36:31]

Izu is just is, pronounced in the Japanese way, and yipari means absolutely. So today is absolutely today. Today is yipari today. And then he walked, again, slowly and steadily in front of us, and he said, Today is natto yesterday. And again he walked in front of us and speaking in that way he said, today is not tomorrow. And then he reached forward and grabbed the neck of a person sitting in the front row and shook him. And he said, do you understand? And then With all of his heart, he smiled and said, today is absolutely today, not yesterday, not tomorrow.

[37:38]

And he smiled again and said, that is all. And the lecture was over. And Ugui says, I couldn't stand up. I was so stunned. because I thought, what have I been worried about? I'm worried about my English language skills aren't good enough. I took it in elementary school, middle school, high school, college. I have a degree in English, and I just heard something that moved me to my heart, and there were like maybe 18 words used. So the problem isn't in my vocabulary. He said, the problem was in my heart. And I think that's true. It's a lesson, a wonderful lesson to be aware of. Because we all have what we need. One of the beautiful things about Buddhism is when Shakyamuni Buddha woke up, after torment and travels and prevails and being unsuccessful, what he did was he just sat down where he was and stayed there.

[38:53]

And then he woke up. All of us can do that. We have within us the capacity to sit down where we are. And Nagui kind of finished that anecdote by saying this experience, this I just described, turned my frustrated life around into being more alive and allowed me to stay and even today it keeps me going. The world is what it is. And it's complicated and beautiful and frustrating and brings us sometimes tears and sometimes it brings us unexpected delights. But whatever it is, it's the gift we have.

[39:57]

It's the place we start. It's the place we end. Perhaps all I can say to conclude this massive talk is that today is today, not yesterday, not tomorrow. Do you understand? 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, please visit sfzc.org and click Giving. May we fully enjoy the Dharma.

[40:51]

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